A pair of Cheyenne girl's beaded hightop moccasins


Fully beaded with buffalo tracks on the vamp and an axis of diamond lozenges about the perimeter, the soft hide leggings showing remains of yellow ochre, beaded about the ankle in the "military" stripe pattern, columns of beadwork up the seam, down-turned cuffs at top.length 15 and 9 1/2in
|Compares FavorablyBonhams & Butterfields, June 7, 2010, sale 18132, lot 1327: for a Southern Cheyenne set of high-top moccasinsFor a thorough review of Cheyenne women's leggings and boots with the striped aesthetic viewed here, see an article in Whispering Wind magazine, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2001 by Michael Kostelnik, pp. 4-17. Some years later, in the July-August 2006 issue of the same magazine, Kostelnik revisited the topic in a column he wrote describing the lot that subsequently was sold in the 2010 auction - remarkably similar in numerous ways to the present lot - as a prototype of classic 19th century Cheyenne footwear:"I have found in my research that Cheyenne boots were constructed less often than the normally separate legging and moccasin style. In both private collections as well as museum displays, boots are rarely seen. The central photo (Photo 2) of my previously published manuscript on 19th century Cheyenne women's leggings...was the signature pair of Cheyenne boots in the Denver Art Museum.This edition of Moccasins Corner features another rare and classic pair of Cheyenne boots...I kept this pair in my personal collection to study for a number of years and today it rests in the collection of a good friend who also appreciates Cheyenne work. This pair of Cheyenne boots is very similar, not only to the pair in the Denver Art Museum, but also to the leggings and moccasins worn by Mrs. Black Elk, a Northern Cheyenne in a photo taken in 1892 by A.L. Harris at Fort Keogh, Montana. This photo...show(s) the striking resemblance between the moccasin beadwork decoration on this pair, and the pair featured in this article. There is no way to know whether Mrs. Black Elk's pair are actually leggings and moccasins, or boots, but the 1892 photo clearly shows what style of moccasins decoration is appropriate for stripe style leggings, and this in itself is an important piece of information. Notice that both pair have white backgrounds and are beaded with the "buffalo track" design, motif, with small geometric horizontal design elements around the perimeter of the moccasin. Note that in the dark transparent green (most likely) buffalo track of Mrs. Black Elk's pair there is a white lane of beadwork with two crossing elements in the center of each green track. As I have mentioned before in earlier work, Kroeber in his published work on Arapahoe symbolism...believes that this symbol is meant to represent a dragonfly near water. According to Kroeber, the Arapahoe associate the dragonfly/water combination with good luck. Notice that on this issue's featured pair that the "dragonfly" symbol is simply represented by a single white line on a green background."