Northern Arapaho Beadwork

[Music] [Music] my name is Marcus Dewey northern Apple Veronica come to meet with this project middle of the early morning and asked me to be her mentor so I agreed and we decided to do Marcus and Liggins regalia for lady and in the process we I taught her how to smoke Heights and lay out the designs before picked out colors and graduated from there two two designs and completing the project my name is Veronica Miller and I'm an enrolled Northern Arapaho and I had been involved in the Wyoming Arts Council before with an ice age designing a dress top but I didn't know how to make moccasins and leggings and so I asked Marcus to do that for me so he made this set for me with the beadwork that goes with it and then the second go-around I decided that I wanted to know how to make the mocks insulating there's a lot to it as far as the design and measuring and all of that and so I approached him and asked him if he would be willing to participate be my mentor he said that he would my grandmother and mother were both bead workers and I am just learning from watching them over the years helped him put moccasins together I think my first pair of moccasins I was like maybe 13 14 years old when I did those and um worked a little bit in the oil fields cattle ranching truck driver joined the service after all that they started selling my beadwork back in like 1990 I think I started doing full-time beat work doing the art shows travel the United States selling my work and now I'm to mostly family beadwork for dancers sand dance that's where I'm at now I got a lot more out of it probably than what we had anticipated because there's just so much knowledge that he has as far as the old ways of doing things and it being traditional regalia he made sure that it was done following the wrap the whole way of beating and following a tradition even the designs and the colors the smoked buckskin we talked a lot about the stories that went along with with it as you know as he would bead and very very patient one thing I learned that I didn't know before is like his beadwork doesn't have knots it doesn't show it and so I was able to learn how to do that and it's just a matter of taking I guess being a professional in the way that you do things and taking pride in the way that you bead I'd helped her before with a pair moccasins the leg and sorry I had her sizes and when we went through designs some old books thunder design we like she liked and we I put them on graph paper so I get two different sizes no exactly help what size we need and smoke the hide taught her what her fur her first pair moccasins is excellent I think they're good but she's got the patience to sit down and and bead and to learn and I you know we've got to be able to have the cultural identity we need to be able to understand who we are and where we come from and that's a that's art that's what you know that's what Indian women would do we would have to bead and and all of that and it's hard to find someone who practices the traditional beadwork style so that's why I came to him and I asked him to help and he was more than willing I think it's Oh to where the traditional won't be lost I'm handing it down to her I have a granddaughter that I'm doing the same thing with because you can't fly in a class to go to to uh to learn to bead work and it's just like like when I learned it was just from experience watching them so that's sort of how I teach is just have them come and watch and if they want to make something make something but it's just like everything else the more you do the better out of you you get a woman's traditional and so the regalia everything is different as far as like the leggings they the way that you design a fancy dance leggings compared to there are traditional women's regalia is different even the style the way that it's developed and goes together the designs on the side it's there's a difference and I didn't know that before until I started working with him and he started explaining to me and then even it's custom made for the individual how you measure them and you see some people who do moccasins and they kind of look like skis because they're not measured right and I didn't know that and after he showed me all this is how you do it and customize it when you put it on it's made for your feet and then we also within the program the the process he everything was done traditional so it has the rawhide soles on it compared to like the leather and so we really tried hard to stick to the traditional making of it and how things would have been done 100 years ago I try to preserve the old design they have new designs more the contemporary call it contemporary traditional they're the same but they don't use the old designs or the old colors they're more flash the new colors fluorescent colors I don't go for those cut beads maybe but I stayed with an old like trade beats that they had back in eighteen hundred's all designs and I try to stay keep everything traditional I will make fancy dance regalia but most of everything else is traditional what they had back in 1870 niners well I'm a teacher and like in my classrooms I had taught kids how to do beat off the looms or make simple earrings and this is something now that is that I will pass on I have nieces I have two sons I have recently have a grandson who's a month old so I'll be making some moccasins for him and then you know my family they dance and so continue to help on what helped out with that and if someone needs help to also be available well I try to teach there by those the old ways of putting everything together because we just like like the moccasin itself ooh-wee the rappers have a certain way we put it together and try to keep that explaining everything to him designs colors try not to lose that see the Wyoming Arts Council this was made available and I really appreciate the fact that we were able to participate in this and it has really done good things to help preserve our culture and our traditions it is an honor to work with Wayman Arts Council and I appreciate the opportunity to pass my knowledge and teachings down to somebody else that will carry it on and that's how we do things is uh by word of mouth and teaching generation to generation [Music] [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: WyomingArtsCouncil

Views: 2,951

Rating: 4.9036145 out of 5

Keywords: Northern Arapaho, Traditional Native American Bead, Beadwork, Beading, Mentorship Project Grant, Wyoming Arts Council, Folk and Traditional Art, Folk Art, Wyoming, Native American, Plains Indian, Native American Design

Id: tgekCMcbaPw

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 12 2018