Headdress
date: label: Accession Date
content: 16 Sep 1946
name: label: Collector
content: Maj. David H. Brotherton
label: Donor Name
content: Mrs. Ruby K. Brown
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Bear's head ornamented with brass tacks and hawk feather pendant. Calico strip attached to rear falling 24". "It won its owner the title of 'Bear Head'." Probably Grizzly bear, ident. by M. Bogan, Div Mammals, 3O/5/78." Illus. p. 179 and discussed on p. 179 and 376 of Gilman, Carolyn. 2003. Lewis and Clark across the divide. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. Identified there as grizzly bear headdress, pre-1881, Teton Lakota. "Headdresses like it were worn only by men with bear power and were used in curing ceremonies or in dances held in preparation for a bear hunt. Catlin painted aspiring Lakota bear hunters wearing headdresses and bearskins in a dance accompanied by a "song to the Bear Spirit," which "holds somewhere an invisible existence, and must be consulted and conciliated.... All, with the motions of their hands, closely imitated the movements of that animal." He also saw a grizzly bear headdress and skin worn by a bear medicine man during the terrifying performance of a healing ceremony."
label: Notes
content: From 2003 Anthropology Conservation Lab condition report on the headdress: The headdress is a grizzly bear head skin with the ears, nose and eye slits. Hanging down the back of the head is brown cloth printed with a blue, orange and tan diamond pattern. On the top of the head is a brown and white striped feather bundle with red wool binding one end and attached to the top of the head with semi-tanned leather thongs. The nose was originally painted with red paint. On the interior, a tinned iron sheet is curved under the nose and the forehead is secured with copper alloy headed iron tacks. The juncture of the tinned iron and head is covered with a band of red tanned leather. The head holds its shape because the leather is stiff. The printed cloth is stitched to a brown cloth that continues into the top of the head. The ears and slits in skin are stitched together. Two semi-tanned leather thongs hang from each side of the headdress and are presumably to secure the headdress to the wearer. A wrapped leather thong is tied between the edges under the eye slits.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 21 Sep 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, Dakota Territory / North Dakota, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Sioux (Oceti Sakowin)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 173740
label: USNM Number
content: E384121-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Headdress
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 44 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 28 cm
label: Height - Object
content: 81 cm