roach headdress

unrecorded Hinono’eino (Arapaho) artist, artist

roach headdress, early 1900s

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: wool yarn; string; deer hair; weaving; dyeing; porcupine hair; buckskin

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width/Length (Height x Width x Length): approximately 19 x 44 x 56 cm
Object Height/Width/Length (Height x Width x Length): 7 1/2 x 17 5/16 x 22 1/16 in

Credit line: Gift from the estate of Gertrude W. Green

Accession number: 2007.0418

Not on display

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Exhibition Label:
"Passages: Persistent Visions of a Native Place," Sep-2011, Nancy Mahaney
This graceful roach headress has been expertly crafted. A roacher spreader made of bone or antler is used inside the roach to attach it to the dancer’s head and to help the headress retain its shape. The origins of the roach are thought to derive from the northeastern tribes, to have spread west to the northern plains tribes and then south, where is was adopted by the southern and eastern plains tribes. The use of red dye to color the animal hair is said to represent the prairie fire, and the black and white the charred land and ash that usher in the renewal of the land after the burning.