“It's important to preserve the culture. There are three things that maintain a culture — language, religion, and art. You lose those three, and you lose the culture completely. So it's very important to retain all of them.”
— Jackie Parsons (Blackfeet), 2005
Left, dress made in the 19th century. It is made entirely of European trade materials and influenced by Western fashion.
Right, Crow elk tooth dress, ca. 1890
Both the pictures and the text are from a brochure promoting the latest exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The exhibit is entitled "Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses".
For more information on the exhibit, see the museum's website.
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