beaded sash

unrecorded Potawatomi artist, artist

beaded sash, 1930s

Where object was made: Kansas, United States

Material/technique: beading; yarn

Dimensions:
Object Length/Width (Length x Width): 181 x 5.5 cm
Object Length/Width (Length x Width): 2 3/16 x 71 1/4 in

Credit line: Gift from the Menninger Foundation

Accession number: 2007.1382

Not on display

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Collection Cards: Land

This decorative sash was made by a Potawatomi artist, but we don’t know their name. They wove together colorful beads to create a pattern of flowers and leaves with diamond shapes sprinkled throughout, but these patterns were not just meant to be pretty designs.
In the early 19th century, the United States government forced the Potawatomi people, along with thousands of other Native Americans, to leave their homelands and relocate on reservations throughout the Southwest Plains. Potawatomi mothers incorporated a secret language into beadwork using designs to preserve and communicate information about family, religion, and medicinal plants. To agents of the federal government, these sashes appeared simply decorative, but for the Potawatomi, the designs communicated important cultural information.
Have you ever created a secret code? What elements did you use to communicate information?