Indians 101: A display of Plateau Indian beadwork (museum exhibit)

by Ojibwa for Native American Netroots

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Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024 Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024 at 7:15:09am PDT

The Willis Carey Wing of the Cashmere Museum in Cashmere, Washington includes an exhibit of Plateau Indian beadwork. The area between the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and Western Montana is known as the Plateau Culture area.

From time immemorial, the Plateau Indians decorated their clothing, their tools, and other items. The use of glass beads for decoration is relatively recent: Plateau Indian artists first began to obtain European glass beads in the late eighteenth century and by the mid-nineteenth century, beadwork was more prevalent that quillwork and painting. The use of glass beads did not represent a new art style, but they were used in traditional styles. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, floral patterns, introduced by the mission and reservation schools to train Indian women in European styles, were incorporated into the traditional styles. In his book Native Arts of North America, Christian Feest reports:

“Only those foreign features that were compatible with traditional design found easy acceptances: floral patterns prospered where curvilinear designs had been the rule.”