Beauty, Honor, and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts
The exhibition of Plains Indian shirts, for which this book is  the catalog, was assembled by the Horse Captures, father and  son, who are affiliated, respectively, with the Smithsonian  National Museum of the American Indian and the Minneapolis  Institute of Arts. Their combined resources provide stunning  examples of the honor shirts worn by leaders of Plains tribes in  the past and a few from the present. The shirts themselves are  featured not so much as a chronological history but with respect  to type and to craftsmanship. These prized shirts were handed  down ceremonially to the next owner and imbued with the sweat of  their wearers as a link with the past. They are made of  deerskin, fringed or edged with hair from vanquished foes, and  decorated with exquisite beadwork or quilled strips (made by the  woman most important to the wearer). Heavy on symbolism, the  shirts draw attention to the weight of tradition and to the  devoted craftsmanship involved in their making, as well as to  the pride with which they were worn. For larger American Indian  collections. Gay Neale, Meredithville, VACopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.