[Spirit]

Okay maybe it’s just me but they look like two Indians not wearing traditional dress. The clothes dont fit them to me, are you sure this is traditional dress and they are not wearing caucasians clothing?

[dovelady]

http://www.lenape.org/pages/photos.html

Hi Tom, for some reason, this link won’t work for me. Is it correct?

Thanks

Nevermind. I just went to http://www.lenape.org and the site is under construction.

[Tom]

All that I can suggest is that you type in the web adddress (url) and you may hit it or just do a search on that topic, it’s there..

[Linda]

Well, Spirit, it’s a bit problematic. What’s traditional is all relative. If we go back to the time of Contact, our ladies were wearing miniskirts. Period. No tops. Obviously, can’t wear that to a pow wow. Then if you go further forward in time, we have a lot of records of how Cherokee ladies adapted to European influence and came up with cloth dresses. At some point, our ladies certainly went through a similar transition. There are a number of ladies who wear a variation of the Cherokee tear dress which is now identified as southeastern ladies dress. Lots of tiers and ruffles and a ceremony of sorts in the making of it.

Then, there’s the recent forensic recreation of a lady’s burial near Danville ca. 1620’s. She’s in a leather dress strikingly similar to what you find out west.

So . . . take you pick. I’m still experimenting and have an idea for a new outfit for summer. Summers are getting hotter all the time. Pow wow etiquette calls for a proper dancer to be covered head to toe, including arms. The lighter the fabric the better. I’m thinking of trying cotton gauze personally, like you find in those gathered skirts from India.

[Tom]

Hello Ladies , well winter is on the way up here and it is now time to take the time and start looking at what you’d like to make and wear, Iam sure that some of the pow wow’s in the future will be held in doors.

I’d like to invite anyone to post a link to thier regalia or to upload the images and items for it here.

Since we have so many new members I took the liberty to revive this old thread and will do with more, however current new members are welcome to do the same.

[Red Metis]

Hey Tom! I’m glad you brought this up because I have been doing searches on women’s clothing all last week. I meant to post something but with my family getting ill, I didn’t have the time. What was decided? I saw the Lenape pictures a while ago but the link doesn’t work anymore. Can’t remember how the dress looked but I’ve seen ribbon dresses on other sites. Would our dress be ribbon style or tear dress? What about colors, beadwork, and embroidery on the dress? What about beadwork and jewelry off the dress?

[Tom]

Well it’s a time thing, depending on the time 1600-1700 1800, like all styles things change.

I don’t know if we can say for sure what style, really my point with rebuilding culture is that by connecting the dots between areas you may be able to see what was going on, MAYBE! but that is taking a liberty and a huge lisence.

You’ll have to decide on the style of dress, the colors that have been posted here already I belive ere blue white black etc, you’ll need to search that out.

As for embroidery the nieghbouring tribes all did it, so you may take that into consideration if your folks were near other peopleaswell look there too,.

jewellery, well my Grandmother wore simple strands of beads and ofcourse with that you could add shell or silver items, look at the posted picture in this thread of the Chitimacha Girl from Louisiana, a pretty common occurance around the world, you may want to research some of the nc archaeology for a more precise answer, aswell look at the Occaneechi Town digs and Kerr lake etc.

There’s a good deal out there to consider and much has been posted on this forum so do a search here and take it from there. I hope that this helps.

Have a great day, Tom.

[Author]

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