Crow Indian Beadwork: A Descriptive and Historical Study [Reprint Edition]

From the Introduction:

The Crow or Apsaruke Indians separated from the semi-sedentary, horticultural Hidatsa Indians on the Missouri River at least 175 years ago. When they were first described by François Larocque, a trader from Canada who traveled with them during the summer of 1805, the Crow had become a nomadic, hunting people who lived in skin-covered tipis in the valley of the Yellowstone River and its tributaries in the southeastern portion of the present state of Montana and adjacent areas in present Wyoming.

In the days before the extermination of the buffalo the Crow Indians were the Plains Indians par excellence. They were the wealthiest and the best dressed Indians in the entire Upper Missouri region. They were renowned both for their steadfast friendship toward the whites and for their courageous struggle to preserve their fine hunting grounds and large horse herds from the hostile incursions of the aggressive and more numerous Blackfoot tribes from the north and the powerful Teton Dakota (Western Sioux) from the east. After the termination of intertribal warfare and the extermination of the buffalo the Crow Indians were settled upon a large reservation, well within the area of their former hunting grounds, in southeastern Montana. Here they have been making a living as stockmen and farmers.

The prowess of the Crow Indians as warriors has received due recognition from historians and ethnologists. However, their ingenuity and skill as artists and craftsmen has not been acknowledged adequately by modern students. Especially in their evaluations of Crow Indian beadwork, the dominant Crow decorative art of the past century, have some students of the highest reputation been inclined to deprecate the originality of the Crow…