Book - Quill and Beadwork of the Western Sioux [SOLD]

From the Back of the Book:

The Sioux believed that the art of quilling was brought to a woman in a dream. She in turn taught others how to work with the quills. Each woman used personal and original designs which she received through her own dreams. When European beads became available the traditional designs were carried over into beadwork.

Quill and Beadwork of the Western Sioux is the classic work on these important Plains Indian arts, applying to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes as well as to the Sioux. The book is at once a history and a practical, easy to follow manual for people wishing to recreate for themselves objects decorated in an authentic and traditional manner.

From the 1940 (First Edition. U.S. Department of the Interior) Copy:

Note that the original price of this publication in 1940 was 75 cents! Black-and-white illustrations.

From the Introduction:

Seventy five, one hundred and two hundred years ago, when visitors from the Old World prepared their baggage for dangerous America, one of its most important items was bright colored beads for the Indians. Traders, explorers, and even officials carried these beads, for they had found that Indian women urged their men to trade for them so that the women might decorate with brilliant patterns the clothing and bags which they made. Such decoration was not a new art. For centuries, the women had been dyeing the quills of the porcupine, sewing them on to [sic] garments and bags, and weaving them into belts, much as they later sewed and wove colored beads. This art of quillwork was an American Indian art, practice nowhere else in the world, and the women gave it up gradually only because beads were so much easier to use