Bustles

[WhoMe]

_____

What's the history of Bustles?

LET'S TALK BUSTLES:

Who started wearing the two bustles.

When did fluffs begin to be added?

When did bustle head dresses become popular?

When did hackles become popular?

What about other bustle materials such as horse hair bustles (completely made of horsehair) and ostrich plumage ?

Who brought hackle bustles to the southern fancy dancers and also to the northern fancy dancers?

Who first wore plain eagle bustles?

Who first wore plastic flagging tape at the end of their bustles?

[Gledanh Zhinga]

Don't know & don't know; however...

Just a couple of items. One time at Ponca Powwow, Franklin Noear (Roland's dad) was head dancer. He dressed in colored long johns and safety pinned his neck bustle onto his long johns at the upper back area. Hey! Let it rock around a little.

The full circle black and white eagle bustle was first worn by Nick Webster (Arapaho?), maybe the late 1950's. Clyde Warrior had the second. Bill Center was a craftsman and trader, originally from Pawhuska. He built Clyde's bustle set.

Bill had a pretty good theory about color. When building an outfit, he always asked whether it was a daytime or nighttime outfit. For example, if the dancer was going to compete under the lights at night, Bill would never include red plumes or beadwork, because it didn't show up well.

Of course, with the black and whites, the sets worked in
daytime and at night.

[FancyLBC]

How acurate is your information and where did your resources come from?

[Gledanh Zhinga]

These are personal recollections.

[Str8Dancer49]

_____


When did hackles become popular?

What about other bustle materials such as horse hair bustles (completely made of horsehair) and ostrich plumage ?

Who brought hackle bustles to the southern fancy dancers and also to the northern fancy dancers?

hey WhoMe..... Steve Mopope was the 1st person to use hackles. He and Oscar Jacobson had gone to the National Folk Life Festival in St. Louis to exhibit paintings in about 1934. While walking down the street, Mopope passed a clothing or costume shop and went in to check it out. He found strung, dyed saddle hackles in a variety of colors - at that time (late 1920s and early 1930s) they were used as trim on women's collars and hats - kinda a "flapper" thing. Anyway, he bought some w/ the cash he had made from painting sales, took them home, and started experimenting. Since Mopope was such a famous dancer (he got forcibly retired from the Gallup Intertribals cause he ALWAYS won), other folks started picking up on the hackles. So hackles started spreading throughout OK in the late 1930s, and with the explosion of dances after WWII, they really took off so they're the norm today. Don't know how they spread up north, but he did travel up there quite a bit, especially in the 1950s

Mopope also made up some other crazy kinds of bustles, but often worked out ideas in his paintings before actually building some of them. So I got no clue about the horsehair thing, though the use of ostrich feathers doesn't seem too out of line - he did make a few all-pheasant tail bustles.

He also had a full black and white bustle, not too different from what No. Tradish dancers wear today, way back in the early to mid 1930s.

PS - Have you noticed that alot of modern chicken dancers dress just like Kiowa fancy dancers from the 1930s? I'd swear some of these new guys are just swiping outfit ideas from Steve Mopope's and Jack Hokeah's paintings. I'm just waiting for a chicken dancer to try and pull off Hokeah's "windshield wiper" moves.

[TTMNO]

PS - Have you noticed that alot of modern chicken dancers dress just like Kiowa fancy dancers from the 1930s? I'd swear some of these new guys are just swiping outfit ideas from Steve Mopope's and Jack Hokeah's paintings. I'm just waiting for a chicken dancer to try and pull off Hokeah's "windshield wiper" moves.

I think the fancy dancers were dressing like chicken dancers.