2 questions.

[Rainbow]

1- Can you wear the tradecloth dress if your Cherokee? I only see the Comanche,sioux and other plains women represented in catalog.


2- Which is the correct style buck to wear for Cherokee women.
Cape top or tee style top?

I see so many mix and matchs I dont know which is correct.

Help

[Okwataga]

1- depends on how you 've come to wear that style dress?

2- buck?? not sure what you mean. cause most cherokees if not in a tear dress will use a t- dress.

as for being catawba(i'm part) you've got your own tribal style dress you could use or incorporate. plus great tribal designs too.

[piperchick]

if it helps...
pre-contact cherokee women wore a wraparound calf-length skirt supported by a finger woven hemp tie-belt and a poncho-like cape; these were made of leather or mulbery bark; they also wore knee-length leggings (think shincovers) in the forest. they were also minimalists when it came to quillwork (cuz the quills had to be got in trade) and pre-bead most dress decoration was woven bits, carved shell and bone, and little feathers, and possibly dye.
i haven't traveled enough to see a large number of cherokee wearing anything but tear (and fancy).

hope this helps!
-d

[Rainbow]

Thanks ladies.

My friend mostly gave me her old buck sikn and I do want to wear it to the Cherokee Powwow but not sure if I would be correct because it has a cape top. Dont know if I should keep that top or just make a T top to go with the bottom part. I am still new and want to be correct. Any advise onany web site were I can do research?

[LumbeeTurtle]

so ur sayin u received a skin dress as a gift? well i think that u should go ahead and wear it to the pow wow. especially if you're a beginner. just keep it modest until you can add on or change the style. it will give you good practise and will help you learn more about dancin and the styles. just make sure you show respect by not misusing it (throwin it onthe ground or anythin).

and im sure that you can find mor info about the style of dress somewhere on the web. obviously cloth was after european contact, and unless im wrong the tear dress didn't start until the trail of tears, when the cherokee were torn from the mountains.

do what you feel and if you're still not sure talk to the elders.

but what im wondering is if you're catawba why are you trying to wear a cherokee style dress? if ur referring to the 4th of july pow wow its intertribal right? so it wont matter what style you have on.

[Rainbow]

I am Cherokee/Chochaw on my Mothers side of our family. Catawba is mamas fathers people. Been working on family histroy and just found our Chochaw family in Ok. Its a wonderful thing, truly. Guess I need to change it on this site. So busy dancing and doing research didint have time..lol
Rainbow.

[piperchick]

tear dress history in a nutshell

tear dress is actually post-relocation... there is a lot of good info out there on the history of the dress w/ names of ppl, places, evolution of the dress, etc,
but in a nutshell, when indian ppls started gathering intertribally and having 'princess'-like contests, a cherokee young lady won one of these while in the garb of one of her plains tribe's friend's dress, and the cherokee council went about looking for old clothing designs within the community to create a traditional ensemble. they found an old dress in a trunk in someone's attic that was old (but still post-trail) and copied the design (which is essentially a lady's shirtwaist and traveling skirt)... it originally was 3/4 sleeved and shin-length and worn w/ a turkey feather cape if a princess, but through theater and powwow has evolved into the current styling.
:Chatter
-d

[FancyStar]

Um, OK! Here on the Cherokee Rez' we've never heard that but hey that may be just us who live here.:)

[Tsiniti]

Originally posted by FancyStar
Um, OK! Here on the Cherokee Rez' we've never heard that but hey that may be just us who live here.:)

In doin a bunch of research, and asking many questions, and watching many pow wows, I've learned, that the tear dress, didn't come into effect until after the Civil War, and that is is primarliy a Western Cherokee Nation thing! I've yet to see any of the Cherokee from the Eastern Band wear them! I've also been told, and if I'm not mistaken it's even on the Cherokee Nation website, that the Tear Dress (as in rip, not tears you shed over something sad) is the "Official" Uniform (I'm not kidding) that should be done to specific regulations or you can be thrown out of a Pow Wow in the Oklahoma area Pow Wows ...... like I said it really was on one of their web sites, I've refused to go back after that!

I've been told that the tear in Tear Dress had nothing to do with crying many many times, and try to explain that to others that ask ....... Guess it sounded better than Rip Dress? It was torn, rather than ripped because they tore it by the way the material flowed rather than against it which would be ripping .... they had no scissors, and tearing it was faster anyway ......

Just my two feathers worth .....

[Tsiniti]

Back to your two questions,

I've seen some Cherokee women wearing Tradscloth dresses at Pow Wows, and often thought I might make one. But it is a Plains style dress.

As for Cape versus T style, that could be a matter of preference, I have a book by Lib Roller, a Cree Woman who worked for the University of TN until her death in her late 80's. In it she discussed both styles, mostly the Cree's wore the Cape, and the Cherokee's the T style, but she had seen evidence of both in either camp .... (she was a historian)

In one of the classes she gave, we all had to go out into the woods, and gather enough materials to come back and make a dress, it wasn't easy, but it was fun, and definatly educational(Girl Scout Leader Camp)

[piperchick]

tear dress website:

granted, take anything on the web w/ x grains of salt, but here is a cherokee tear dress fact sheet site with good pics, names and places that can be researched offline to prove or disprove factualness; be sure to click on links for more info:

http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/Cher...DressFacts.htm

:)
d

[Rainbow]

Cape vs T.

I would like to thank everyone for all this information.

Tsiniti, could you please give me more information on the book that Ms Roller wrote, Catologe #, Title. I would love to get a copy for myself.


Thanks everyone.
Rainbow

[Tsiniti]

Re: Cape vs T.

Originally posted by Rainbow
Tsiniti, could you please give me more information on the book that Ms Roller wrote, Catologe #, Title. I would love to get a copy for myself.

I wish I could, it was a book she had published herself through the University of Tennessee, (I will look for it here at the house, to double check) she used it in her classes, and quit teaching five years ago, when I got my autographed copy, it was one of just a few that she had left, later after she died, and I tried to get a replacement(I thought Mine had been stolen) I contacted the University and was told that there just weren't anymore, it was one of her personal text books that she wouldn't let into anyone else's hands. I can't begin to tell you how in the reading of that book covering just about anything you can imagine about the way of life pre-white man, I could hear my Great Grandmother's voice teaching me basically the same thing.

As I said, I'll turn the house back upside down looking for it(we cleaned house therefore I can't find anything) and at least get the title for you, who knows you might accidently find one on E-Bay from a former student!(not me!!)

[Tsiniti]

AHA!! I found my book!

"Indians of Tennessee"
An Activity Manual

By Lib Roller


No catalog number or anything like that, as I said she paid to have it published by the students at the University of TN at Knoxville. Not even a date inside to tell when it was published or anything(that part is really sad)

But it has everything you could drool over about natives pre-white!! Recipes, clothing patterns, how they lived, the plants, animals, oh goodness I could go on and on! She was an excellent Instrutor in that she literally made us go and get our own materials to make things, like our game pieces out of sticks, and even the sticks, and leaves to make our own dream catchers that could also be used as one of the games ... I still have my very first dream catcher, we had to throw it at a stick another person held.

Like I said I could go on and on, it's been at least 10 yrs since I first met the author, and I couldn't believe out of Lord only knows how many Girl Scout Leaders she'd met let alone real students, she remembered me! She said that was easy, I was the only one who didn't claim a Cherokee Princess in my geneology, I do remember her coming to me to ask what tribe I was though, I did claim some Cherokee, and she said Honey, there's definatly more than just Some in You!! I cried!! still do .... she's past on now ...

I honestly don't know if you can get a book or not, when I tried to get a copy for a friend, I was told that those books were her personal property and the only way to get one now is to find one in a used book store from a former student .......

[eagle_plume999]

what kind of cloth dress would a sioux wear? if anyone could explain to me or post a picture that would be great.....thnx