Shirt

This shirt demonstrates important artistic innovations on the Plains during the first half of the nineteenth century, when newly established military forts became centers for trade. The square bib is made from European trade materials: wool Stroud cloth from Stroud, England, small seed beads, and larger pony beads from Vienna. The more customary rosette in the center of the chest is formed by porcupine quills and maidenhair-fern stems and probably represents a thunderbird, a powerful spiritual symbol. The shirt is one of many objects collected by Dr. Nathan Sturges Jarvis while he served as a medical doctor in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, between 1830 and 1833.