leggings (2), women's

leggings (2), women's

leggings (2), women's

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Introduction

Mississauga or Anishnaabe leggings. Black wool broadcloth, glass seed beads and silk tape. Collected by Milford Chandler in 1925.

Nation of Maker: Anishinaabe
Nation of Origin

Mississauga Chippewa

Date Made or Date Range: 1900s to 1925
Summary of Source(s) for this Relative

NMAI records and physical examination by Cory Willmott and Ann McMullen, July 2007.

Materials

Black wool broadcloth, size 13 glass seed beads (white, green, greasy blue/turquoise, dusty rose), maroon/crimson silk tape

Techniques or Format

Each a single piece of fabric folded in half and trimmed to narrow and then flare (in way considered characteristic of Iroquois) and sewn (consistently 1 inch from edge) all the way up with seam at the front of the leg and extending down to bottom, stopping 1 inch from bottom cuff. Silk binding on bottom of cuff and extending slightly more than half way up leg. Beadwork sewn directly on cloth and goes all the way through.

Motifs and Patterns

From bottom, mini celestial dome topped with little peatals (alterating rose and green), row of double celestial domes with alternating rose and green centers; row of triangles; row of dots; row of double curves; three rows of triangles to form mesh/lattice pattern; row of alternating designs: pair of opposed double curves with center filled with greasy turquoise and and downward facing double curves topped with equal-barred cross; three row lattice; row of downward facing trinagles filled with green and rose; sprouting out of green ones are double curves

Other Notes

CW and AMcM discuss whether these are men''s or women''s: they seem short for a man or tall for a woman. AMcM seems to feel that only men''s Iroquois-style leggings are flared like this while women''s are more often straight cuffed; CW and AMcM question whether Missisauga follow Iroquois patterns for leggings like these. See and compare to illustrations in Peter K. Jones book.

Reasons for connecting this relative with particular times, materials, styles and uses

NMAI records

Catalogue, Accession or Reference Number: 140773.000
Collection at Current Location: Chandler Collection
Date of Acquisition by the Institution: 1/1/1991
Date Relative was First Removed or Collected from its Community Context: ca 1925
Collection Narratives and Histories

Chandler, Milford G.

GKS Reference Number: 25468
Record Creation Notes/Observations

This record was created on site at NMAI by the GRASAC members listed below. Ann McMullen and Pat Nietfeld of NMAI supported the research onsite. Cory Willmott's research was funded by a grant from the American Philosophical Society. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provided Cory with an RA, Ceara Horsley, in Fall 2008 to work on GRASAC data entry. (CH)

Approximate Place of Origin

42.5602, -82.4973

Source of Information about Places

Ontario, Canada