As I look at this amazing Yakama Dress I can’t help but wonder about the woman who made it. It was not exactly like she ran out to the store for a length of fabric and a pre-made pattern; she had to start from scratch! The dress is all handmade, beginning with cleaning and softening the hide and bleaching it to pure whiteness.
Yakama (Native American). Woman’s Beaded Dress, late 19th century. Buckskin, glass beads, metal coins, 46 x 45 1/2 in. (116.8 x 115.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 46.181. Creative Commons-BY-NC
You can see the care in which it is made and the artist’s attention to detail by looking closely at her choice of beads. Each bead is chosen for its specific color in the design, and then sewn on – not an easy task pushing the needle through hide. The Yacama woman’s choice of danglers to use on the bodice makes me think about my own collecting habits. Perhaps the Chinese coins were treasured heirlooms. Or perhaps the pieces came from other dresses now worn out or given to her from a family member.
We know that this Yakama dress was part of the collection of designer Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) and exhibited in a special Native American gallery in Tiffany’s Long Island home, Laurelton Hall. He was an avid collector of Native American art and traveled to the Northwest area in 1910, 1911 and again in 1916 where he collected many Native American objects including baskets (also in the Museum’s collection) and this Yakama Dress. The dress came to the Museum in 1946 when the contents of Laurelton Hall came up for auction.
Today, the Yakama Nation with around 10,000 members is located on the Columbia Plateau in Washington State near the Columbia River. The women are still famous for their containers and headgear made in a traditional basketry style and their fine beadwork on clothing and horse gear.
Author RSS 
RSS 
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum
The dress is not bleached by the tanning process, Brain tanning just brings out the white of the natural hide. Usually the hide is lightly smoked after brain tanning. But cleaning by the owners with chalk balls or by other processes later takes out the dirt for display.
Thanks , Linda.As a ‘tipi’ person you might be interested in knowing that the Brooklyn Museum will be having an exhibition, “Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains” in Spring 2011. Come and visit with us! Love to see you.
I will since I was contacted a while ago on some of the material that will be in the exhibition. The Cheyenne material is of great interet to me. I intend to be there as soon as I get more information…when is the opening date? Know is was to have opened this last fall and glad to see it is on again.
Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains exhibition will open Feb 18 and run until May 15. Museum is open Tuesday through Sundays all the time. Do call or email before you come so we can meet.
Definitely intend to be there. Is there an opening show before the Feb 18 start? I wrote the book Tipis-Tepees-Teepees: History and Design of the Cloth Tipi…by Linda A. Holley. I have been particularly interested in historical material and still learning more since the book was publised. My main area is the construction and use of the old tipis.
I had a wonderful conversation with a couple of folks yesterday about the Yakama dress during the afternoon Spotlight Talk. It was a very small group of two men, one a Brooklynite by way of the Ukraine and a gentleman from western Missouri who was visiting the Brooklyn Museum for the first time. They both seemed to enjoy getting to know this particular object from our collection better. They asked lots of questions and were particularly taken with a question that you raised during one of our earlier conversations…”Why would the owner of an object that had such personal value be willing to sell it to a collector?” Thanks for suggesting this wonderful object. I’ve also enjoyed getting to know it and its story better.
Do you really know the truth about original owner? Maybe if was found on burial or never was a value because it’s beauty was nothing to it’s creator just because she owned too many or this was way too long ago? Or price is a billion which would buy much more than just a dress…
Thanks for asking Nicolas. We are positive this dress is not from a burial. Such dresses are still made today and the Plateau people do indeed consider them special, beautiful and valuable as an item that signifies their identity. This type of dress is not something a woman would wear everyday so it would be doubtful if she owned too many. Native Americans have always been traders between themselves so trading or selling to a non_Native person would have been an acceptable thing to do in historical times as it is today with a flourishing art market! Reasons for the owner to give or sell this dress could have varied from merely wanting or needing the money to gifting someone as a way of saying thank you for a special service rendered by the trader.