15

Women's Dress - "Asoka'sim"
Circa 1930s
Fort Whoop-Up National Historic Site


Credits:
Quinn Pereverseff

16

Men's and Women's Clothing

Ninaa Sokasimi - Men's dress/suits

Alternate Name: Isttohksisoka'sim - Shirt (thin jacket/coat)

Everyday clothing was generally plain and undecorated, except with fringes
Ceremonial and dress suits were elaborately decorated with quillwork or beadwork, sometimes with painting adorned with weasel tails or hair fringe
A typical dress suit was made with two deer or antelope hides-cut and pieced together to resemble a poncho-style, with long closed sleeves
A traditional style is retained the skins from the hind legs, which hung down in trailers at each side, front and back
Modern style eliminates these trailers by cutting the skin straight across, or in a slight arc at the bottom
There were two styles of finishing the neck, the v-shaped flap decorated with fringe and strips of quillwork or beadwork was inserted, front and back

Womens' Dresses

Fur trader David Thompson noted in the late 1700s that Blackfoot women wore a casual dress style was similar to a woman's long slip - a rectangular body held up by shoulder bands.

In cooler weather, a typical dress is fashioned with a cape pieced to the body of the dress, extending over the shoulders and upper arms, fitting rather close to the neck.
In this dress, the cape is made with Dentalia Shells, created from the teeth of prehistoric creatures.

The dress could be ornamented with dyed porcupine quills and leather strips, with broad diversified stripes of glass beadwork, or with shells, animal teeth, even sewing thimbles.

A traditional dress was made from deer hide, tanned to buckskin. The dress was made with the head of the skin at the bottom of the skirt. The neck and foreleg of the skin were left in their original shape, giving the dress it's irregular, wavy pattern, or were cut into fringes.

With the introduction of trade cloth, dress patterns were designed similar to the traditional buckskin dress style, and generally made in either red or blue trade wool. Cloth rolls often had a white stripe, left plain during the dying process, and the dress was often designed to incorporate the stripe at the bottom of the dress.