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How Iroquois Artists Turned Trespassers Into Tourists
January 11, 2002
By GRACE GLUECK
Faced with continuing loss of their lands and the decline
of hunting and fishing in the 19th century, the Iroquois
nations of New York State and Canada came up with a
successful survival strategy: they would sell tourists the
fancy beadwork they had long done for themselves.
And so a flourishing cottage industry was born. Moccasins,
bags, pincushions, needle cases, sport and smoking caps,
picture frames, jewelry, match holders, clothing and
hanging baskets were brilliantly stitched with tiny glass
beads by women, using tribal themes but also adapting to
the Victorian tastes of their buyers. They were sold - and
still are - at Niagara Falls and other sites near Iroquois
communities.
But the show "Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life" at
the George Gustav Heye Center of the Smithsonian National
Museum of the American Indian lays to rest any idea that
the tourist items were mostly made-for-the-trade
tchotchkes. Done with a vital design sense and
extraordinary handcraft, they are part of a long line of
Iroquois beadwork that goes back hundreds of years to a
time when beads made from shells and bird bones were used
instead of the tiny glass cylinders first brought to North
America by European explorers in the 16th century.
The show presents more than 300 items from before European
influence to the present. It was organized by the McCord
Museum of Montreal and the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara
University in collaboration with the Kanien'kehaka
Raotitiohkwa Cultural Center, on the Kahnawake reservation
in Canada; the Tuscarora Nation community beadworkers in
New York State; and the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto.
Many of the items are from the 19th century, including a
large selection of objects made for tourists. Background
material includes a large wampum belt from the late 18th
century woven of shell beads, one of many wampum
"documents" used for record keeping in the absence of a
written language; examples of trade silver ornaments made
by Europeans as gifts for tribes in North America; and
samples of early Venetian glass beads, dating from the
1580's to the 1630's.
Records show that glass beads were first supplied to the
Mohawks, one of the six Iroquois nations, as early as 1616,
and by the 18th century commercial beads were in widespread
use. Before that, quill work, using dyed porcupine quills,
was a preferred form of decoration. But the stiffness of
the quills made them more suitable for geometric design.
Abundant plant life in the Iroquois regions suggested the
use of curvy forms with leaf and floral patterns, and beads
were more amenable to the working of these more delicate
motifs.
Significant tribal symbols relating to the Iroquois
cosmology are also prevalent in the works. Among them is
the Sky Dome, a half circle resting on two parallel lines,
with a pair of simplified plant forms springing from the
dome's top. The dome signifies the arc of the sky, the
parallel lines the earth. The plant forms represent the
celestial tree of life that stands at the center of the
world, bearing the sun and the moon aloft in its branches.
The symbol, enhanced by elaborate scrollwork, was often
used to adorn women's leggings and more recently for the
neckline of a knockout red velvet evening gown designed in
1997 by Tammy Beauvais, a Mohawk. It is heavily beaded with
the Sky Dome motif in white, accented by double curves,
another theme derived from the Iroquois world view.
Tribal motifs also include the sun in stylized form, the
celestial tree as a floral design enriched by fruits, the
mythological turtle on which the earth was built and other
animal clan figures. In earlier work the use of symbols was
enhanced by striking patterns of white beads on the edges
of garments like a handsome black Canadian waistcoat from
the mid-19th century, whose front opening is edged in a
lacy design of stylized flowers springing from tiny
triangles with a row of beaded curves simulating scalloping
along the bottom of the vest.
But by then the Iroquois, tuning in to the larger world,
were beginning to use a new style of embroidery more
reflective of Victorian taste and combining their own
symbols with European and North American elements. The
beading became fuller and more florid, creating an
embossed, bas- relief effect and often covering most of the
background. A wider color range brought in more dark and
medium tones.
Examples abound in the form of pouches and purses (the
Iroquois shared the Victorian love of bags), pincushions,
caps and such made for tourists. In an apparent copying of
European decorative art forms a Tuscarora beaded handbag,
made between 1850 and 1910 and cut in a perky curvaceous
shape, is covered with floral elements sophisticatedly
worked in red, blue, white, yellow and other colors, the
whole framed by a variety of neat white borders.
Pincushions made to hold long hatpins and in smaller
versions sewing needles were one of the most popular items
sold by Iroquois beaders. Boot shapes in beads and fabric
were an Iroquois specialty, and one 19th-century Mohawk
beader, Mae Goodleaf, went so far as to make one in the
form of a woman's leg. Another 19th-century Mohawk
pincushion, maker unknown, occurs in the form of a
six-pointed star embroidered in white beads with a black
center containing a white eagle bearing an American flag on
each wing.
Headgear took the form of heavily beaded caps for sports,
for smoking and for general use. Of the sports caps,
reminiscent of the ubiquitous baseball toppers that men
wear today except that they have shorter visors, two
treasures are a jaunty number from between 1850 and 1910
heavily encrusted with gray floral beading on a dark gray
ground and a small but sumptuous football cap worn by a
McGill University player in the 1890's.
The most popular hat made by Iroquois beaders was the
glengarry, the snappy Scottish head warmer creased
lengthwise across the top and often trimmed with short
ribbons at the back. The heavily beaded versions in the
show were probably derived from the military uniforms worn
by some British regiments serving in Canada.
Beads, of course, adorned all manner of Indian outfits, but
a particularly fetching one is the deerskin ensemble worn
by one of the best-known Mohawk entertainers, Princess
White Deer, nee Esther Deer (1891- 1992). A member of a
family enterprise, "The Famous Deer Brothers Champion
Indian Trick Riders of the World," which performed across
Europe and America in the early 1900's, she became an
acclaimed singer and dancer in American vaudeville shows.
Her playful costume, from about 1910 to 1920, consisted of
a beaded deerskin bikini, a bra top, a headdress and boots
with beaded cuffs. The beaded symbols include several
swastikas, an ancient motif used by aboriginal artists and
thought to represent the sun and the cycle of time,
predating by millenniums the adoption of the sign by the
Nazi Party. As a whole the outfit is strictly
Mohawk-Hollywood.
The exhibition contains many items recently made by
Iroquois beaders who have revivified the art, although it
must be admitted that this is the area where the kitsch
really begins to creep in. Among their more exotic
contributions are a group of Barbie dolls, adorned with
feathers and beads by Noreen Reese of the Cayuga nation, a
jeans jacket with a beaded Buffalo Bill football team
medallion, made by Cheryl Greene of the Onandaga tribe, a
marionette in a beaded outfit, made by Iris Stacey, a
Mohawk, and a pair of beaded running shoes made by Loretta
Jabokwoam of the Woodland Cultural Center in Brantford,
Ontario.
The show adds up to a resplendent eyeful and persuades the
viewer that the beadwork was an important means of exchange
between the Iroquois and their European- North American
contacts.
But one complaint: as usual, the museum has overdone the
installation; in this case, by using aluminum poles to
frame most of the exhibits. The attempt is to suggest the
longhouse, the communal living quarters that traditionally
housed Iroquois tribes. The poles not only fail to evoke
the longhouse but also interfere with viewing.
``Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life'' remains at
the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian,
George Gustav Heye Center, 1 Bowling Green, Lower
Manhattan, (212)514-3700, through May 19.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/arts/design/11GLUE.html?ex=1011749277&ei=1&en=f8b393b405a5e88b
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