War Shirt
date: label: Accession Date
content: 8 Oct 1892
name: label: Collector
content: Mr. James Mooney
label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Trimmed with scalps. Of buckskin. Collar, ornamented with red flannel, beadwork, and fringe of horsehair, dyed blue. Sleeves and shoulder pieces of heavy beadwork. The left shoulder hung thick with ermine skins and strips of the same material; the right shoulder adorned with beadwork, ermine skins, and Navajo scalps. Though apparently collected from the Kiowa, it is of typical Crow workmanship and the ermine tails are from Northern Plains. Could have been a trade item. This object identified as being shirt of Dohasan (Little Bluff) the Younger [i.e. Dohasan III] - Father Peter Powell 11-15-1988." From 19th or early 20th century exhibit label with card: "War shirt of buckskin (Kiowa Indians). Collar, ornamented with red flannel, beadwork, and fringe of horsehair, dyed blue. Sleeves and shoulder pieces of heavy beadwork. The left shoulder hung thick with ermine skins and strips of the same material; the right shoulder adorned with beadwork, ermine skins, and Navajo scalps. Indian Territory, 1892. Collected by James Mooney."
label: Notes
content: War shirt. Poncho-style made of four skins with extensive native repair. Blue streaked paint on upper body. Rectangular neck tabs decorated in red flannel, lazy stitch beadwork and quill and yarn-wrapped horsehair pendants. Broad bands of geometric overlay beadwork on shoulders and sleeves, edged with long ermine pendants - except right front where pendants are scalp locks wrapped in flannel and quillwork. Form and beadwork typical of the Crow, from whom this may have been obtained in trade. 50" (127 cm). In Mooney (1979:400), he notes that a scalp shirt formerly belonging to Dohasan III, the husband of Ankima, is in the collection of the National Museum. See Photographs section, inventory number 00653600 and 00653700 for pictures of this shirt worn by Dohasan. Records: Adorned with beadwork, ermine skins and Navajo scalps. (C,L). (from Merrill, William L. et al. 1997. A Guide to the Kiowa Collections at the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, no. 40. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.)
label: Record Last Modified
content: 1 Mar 2023
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, Oklahoma / Indian Territory, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Kiowa
label: Culture
content: Crow (Apsaalooke)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 026286
label: USNM Number
content: E165235-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Shirt