Daniel C. Swan - Wedding Clothes and the Osage Community: A Giving Heritage

WEDDING CLOTHES
AND THE
OSAGE COMMUNITY

WEDDING CLOTHES
AND THE
OSAGE COMMUNITY

A GIVING HERITAGE

DANIEL C. SWAN AND JIM COOLEY

FOREWORD BY

PRINCIPAL CHIEF GEOFFREY STANDING BEAR

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

in cooperation with the

MATHERS MUSEUM OF WORLD CULTURES

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

This book is a publication of

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Office of Scholarly Publishing

Herman B Wells Library 350

1320 East 10th Street

Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

2019 by Daniel C. Swan and Jim Cooley

A free digital edition of this book is available at IUScholarWorks: http://hdl.handle.net/2022/22292

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Swan, Daniel C., author.

Title: Wedding clothes and the Osage community : a giving heritage / Daniel C. Swan and Jim Cooley ; foreword by principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear.

Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2019] | Series: Material vernaculars | Indiana University Press, in cooperation with the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Indiana University. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019012149 (print) | LCCN 2019021189 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253043047 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253043016 | ISBN 9780253043016 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253043023 (paperback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Wedding costumeUnited StatesHistory. | Osage IndiansSocial life and customs. | Osage IndiansRites and ceremonies.

Classification: LCC GT1753.U6 (ebook) | LCC GT1753. U6 S83 2019 (print) | DDC 392.5/4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012149

1 2 3 4 524 23 22 21 20 19

First Printing 2019

To Preston Morrell
Proceeds from the sale of this book will be
used to support the open access edition

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

E NTER INTO THE WORLD OF THE WAHZHAZHI, WHICH IS WHAT THE Osage call themselves. I am a Wahzhazhi.

My grandmother Mary Lookout Standing Bear was the daughter of Principal Chief Fred Lookout of the Wahzhazhi. She was fluent in our Wahzhazhi language and learned the English language and Anglo cultural traditions when she attended boarding school. Before that, the ways of our Wahzhazhi people were the only ways of life that she knew. Most of what I learned about our traditions came from her, from my great-uncles and great-aunts, and from my many other relatives who understood that world.

This book contains rich descriptions of our Wahzhazhi history and traditions. Of the many sources that appear in this book, I personally knew or met a few of them, and every one of them was well versed in Wahzhazhi knowledge and practices. For the many sources whom I never knew, I rely on the professional integrity of the two authors. I met Jim Cooley in 1985 at the Osage Indian Days celebration in Hominy, Oklahoma, and I have known Daniel Swan for decades as a respected scholar on the Wahzhazhi and as a friend.

Osage wedding clothes is the theme of this book, a wonderful subject that connects to a vast range of teachings. This book traces our Wahzhazhi wedding clothes from their beginning long ago as military uniforms that were given to my people. Our ancestors decided that the women in our wedding ceremony would wear the coats. The authors have used a broad range of written and oral sources to describe the Wahzhazhi wedding ceremony. Surrounding these descriptions are related subjects that are themselves vast and complex. The authors then take us into the modern era where wedding coats are used in our largest traditional dance, the Ilonshka, when a person who is designated as a new drum keeper gives several of these wedding outfits away when he pays for the drum.

I talked to the authors after reading the manuscript and told them that I was amazed that so much information had been collected and then organized into a readable story.

I am just one person with, as I said, a very limited amount of knowledge. I can only speak for myself. Other Wahzhazhi may read this and come to different conclusions. I hope that all people who read this book will find it as interesting as I have.

Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, Osage Nation
June 28, 2018

Note: Wedding Clothes and the Osage Community (2019): p. ixx, DOI: 10.2979/weddingclothesosagecommunity.0.0.01

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T HE AUTHORS WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS THEIR APPRECIATION TO THE many individuals who supported and contributed to this book. Projects of this nature are long term and often bridge several tribal administrations and benefit from the contributions of many tribal program officers. This project is no exception, beginning with the endorsement of Chief John D. Red Eagle and his executive office in 2013. Subsequently the project has received strong support from Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear (2014present), and we appreciate his continued interest and encouragement. His willingness to contribute the foreword to this work is greatly appreciated. We are particularly indebted to Kathryn Redcorn, director emerita of the Osage Nation Museum. Kathryn was an early and tireless supporter of our efforts, and her contributions were critical in facilitating community participation in our research. We also acknowledge invaluable assistance from former Osage Nation Museum employees Lou Brock and James Elsberry in facilitating and documenting the community research events sponsored by the museum in 2014 and 2015. Vann Bighorse, former director of the Wahzhazhi Cultural Center and current director of the Osage Language Department was a valuable partner in our efforts, and we appreciate his interest and contributions to the project. We wish to thank the staff of the Wahzhazhi Cultural Center and particularly Renee Harris and Rebecca Larsen Brave, for their assistance in organizing the 2015 community display of Osage wedding clothes at the Cultural Center.

We also wish to recognize Hallie Winter, director of the Osage Nation Museum and Addie Hudgins, director of the Wahzhazhi Cultural Center for their continued support of the project. The collections of these institutions were central to our effort. It was a great honor to work with Hallie and her staff to facilitate the display of the