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American Frontier Art & Craft

Crow/Plateau style quill-wrapped horse hair war shirt, 1840

This artwork is part of a private collection and is not available for purchase. It serves as an educational benchmark for historical accuracy. To see items currently available for acquisition, please visit our Available Works section

Maker: Lukáš Navrátil

Materials: Wet-scraped brain-tanned hides, porcupine quills, antique pound beads, horse hair, woolen yarn, natural pigment.

Made in: 2020

A war shirt in the style of the Crow Indians or the Columbia Plateau from the period around 1840.

Construction

The cut of the shirt is wide with overlapping sleeves, which was typical for this type of war shirt. They were mostly made from bighorn sheep skins, which are well-suited for this type of garment.

Strips

The strips are embroidered using the quill-wrapped horsehair technique, which is one of the most difficult quillwork techniques, characteristic specifically of the Plateau and Crow tribes. The strips are edged with pound beads (pony beads), which are mostly antique originals.

Quill-wrapped horsehair reproduction.
Detail of Plateau war shirt strip featuring quill wrapped horse hair technique.
Detail of original Plateau quill-wrapped horse hair strip. Masco collection.

Fringes

The shirt is decorated with dense fringes wrapped in porcupine quills, where two fringes are always joined together by the wrapping.

Bibs

The bib is triangular, although a variant with a square or rectangular bib also existed.

Paint

The shirt is colored with a light red-orange ochre, which is also typical for this style of shirt.

Some extant originals used as inspiration

In reality, shirts of this type are very rare, and only a few pieces have been preserved in museums and private collections.

Pitt Rivers Museum, labeled as Nez Perce.
A war shirt with quill wrapped horse hair double lane stripes. NMAI.
NMAI.
Crow war shirt with quill wrapped horse hair double lane stripes, Diker collection.
Diker collection.
A Crow war shirt with quill wrapped horse hair double lane stripes. NMAI.
NMAI.

Detail of quill wrapped horse hair rosette.

Quill-Wrapped Horsehair Technique

Lukáš NavrátilJanuary 13, 2026

The quill-wrapped horsehair (QWHH) technique is a rare and highly demanding form of North American Indigenous quillwork, likely originating among the Crow and Plateau tribes in the early 19th century. Using porcupine quills wrapped around single or double bundles of horsehair, it creates distinctive three-dimensional embroidery for garments, buffalo robe strips, moccasins, and other items. Surviving examples are extremely scarce, found mainly in museum and private collections, and valued for their technical complexity, aesthetic uniqueness, and cultural significance.

Detail of Cree quilled knife sheath. British Museum.

Porcupine Quillwork

Lukáš NavrátilJanuary 9, 2026

Quillwork—the art of decorating with the quills of the North American porcupine—is among the oldest and most significant artistic techniques of the Indigenous peoples of North America. It was far more than mere decoration; the patterns carried profound spiritual symbolism, reflecting cosmology and the cosmic order, while conveying blessings, protection, and vital life force to their wearers.

Quilled Cheyenne war shirt, scalp locks, painted green and yellow.

Plains Indians War Shirts

Lukáš NavrátilJanuary 8, 2026

War shirts are some of the most beautiful artifacts plains indians produced. They were not just interesting and attractive pieces of outerwear, but rather a sign of social status. Only distinguished warriors had the right to wear such kind of shirts. The article discusses the meaning of war shirts, constructions details, importance of four beaded or quilled strips, meaning of human scalp locks, ermine tubes and leather fringes, pigment painting, pictographs and many more.