Construction and Historical Context
This war shirt represents a typical example of the 19th-century Transmontane style, which was primarily inherent to the Crow tribes and the nations of the Columbia Plateau.
The shirt is made in a poncho style. Traditionally, these garments were made from two large bighorn sheep hides. The lower part of each hide formed the front and back panels of the shirt, while the front legs and neck naturally created the sleeves. Although this cut was most widespread in the first half of the 19th century, its tradition partially persisted into the second half of the century.
A characteristic feature is the generosity of the material—both the body and sleeves are very wide and robust. During the tanning process, the front and hind legs, the tail, and sometimes a strip of fur from the tail to the hind legs were intentionally left on the skin, which then forms the bottom hem of the finished shirt.
Material and Tanning Technique
A crucial detail that distinguishes an authentic replica from a poor imitation is the method of processing the hide. Period originals were almost exclusively wet-scraped. Unlike dry-scraping, which creates a suede-like surface, the wet method gives the leather a specific smoothness. For thin hides, such as those from bighorn sheep, this technique was also faster and more efficient.
For this reconstruction, I chose skins from European young does harvested in winter. Their skin is thin and of uniform thickness across the entire surface, thus faithfully simulating the properties of the originally used bighorn sheep.
The Cut: The sleeves overlap the sides of the body by about 15 cm, which is a traditional method documented by many museum originals.
Proportions: The back of the shirt is intentionally about 10 cm longer. This is because the shoulder seam does not lie directly on the shoulder but, due to the human physique, falls slightly forward. The longer back panel ensures that the bottom edges are level when worn.
Edge Details: The edges of the leather are cut with fine incisions, moistened, and then each individual fringe is twisted and pulled. This creates an aesthetic “breaking” of the sharp edges, which is a standard feature of extant pieces.
Architecture of Transmontane Strips
The decoration of the shirt follows a strict, tradition-defined architecture. It consists of four beaded strips: two wider shoulder strips and two narrower sleeve strips.
Strips Technique: The background is embroidered using an overlay stitch, most often in shades of light blue, more rarely pink, green or yellow.
Bordering: The strip is almost always bordered with a lazy stitch in a contrasting color—for a blue background, this is typically a dark bottle green.
Symbolism: The dominant features are the so-called figures (colored rectangles). The shoulder strips carry one (on the shoulder) or two figures (front and back). The sleeve strips have one scaled-down figure, which may or may not correspond in design to the shoulder ones. The figure is often executed in the classic Transmontane style and consists of colored fields in a geometric design, often with white border outlines.
The Story of Reconstruction: Inspiration by an Original
The design of the strips for this shirt has a fascinating origin. It is based on a specific historical fragment that I came across in a scholarly discussion. It was a separate shoulder strip that had been recycled into a pouch in the past. The strip had been cut, both colored figures sewn together as the front side, and the rest formed the body of the pouch. For a connoisseur of Transmontane design, however, it was immediately obvious that this was a secondarily used strip from a Crow war shirt.
This find inspired me to physically “reconstruct” the original whole. I beaded two shoulder strips exactly matching this original. I made the sleeve strips with the same figures, only with slightly altered proportions.
I used exclusively antique seed beads from the 19th century, including the rare “red-white inside” or “white hearts”. When sewing the strips to the body of the shirt, I inserted a red wool yarn fiber into the stitches, just as can be seen on extant period originals. I dyed the yarn red myself to achieve the same color seen on historical pieces. The strips are attached to the shirt so that they taper slightly downwards, which is an authentic detail often overlooked by modern creators.
Bibs
I chose a rectangular shape based on a specific historic piece. They are made of old scarlet wool broadcloth in a plain weave and decorated with antique seed beads.
Ermine Tubes
Most strips were bordered with scalp locks, buckskin fringes, or ermine pelts. I chose ermine pelts, but I took the unconventional route of “doubled ermines.” This is a “lengthening” technique where two lengths of skin are sewn together, creating tubes 50 cm or more in length. This is seen on some originals.
I cut the tanned ermine skins into 1 cm wide strips and lengthened them by sewing two together, achieving double the length. Then I folded the strip of fur and sewed it with linen thread. On originals, one often sees ermine tubes sewn with colored silk thread—red, blue, yellow, or another prominent color. But of course, there are also tubes sewn with cotton, linen, or even sinew. This work is demanding because the hairs get caught under individual stitches and must be pulled out with a needle.
Patina
To suppress the bright whiteness of the fur, I soaked the pelts in a solution of alcohol and ochre earth. The result is an authentic, slightly “aged” look, as seen on period originals. After soaking in the solution, the fur becomes limp, but as it dries, it regains its volume.
Firecrackers, Feathers, Thongs, and False Tails
Attached to each tube with sinew are buckskin thongs, red-dyed hackle feathers, and “firecrackers“—rolled cylinders of red wool cloth. On tubes where a natural ermine tail was missing, I applied a trick of the old Indian masters: I attached tufts of bison fur to them, visually replacing the missing black tips. Indians sometimes also attached black bear fur, dark horse mane, and the like to the ends of ermine tubes. This completes the ermine tubes.
Painting and Final Assembly
The shirt is painted with natural green earth mixed with a small amount of grease. I chose a subtle design with fine stripes. The Crow, unlike the Lakota, used colors sparingly and almost never in two-color combinations. It is important to wipe off excess dye so that the shirt does not stain the ermine skins or other items that come into contact with it.
Attachment of Ermine Tubes
Ermine tubes cannot be attached to the strips randomly; they must be sorted by length and arranged so that on the sleeve strips, the shortest tubes are at the outer ends of the sleeves and the longest are at the inner ends. For the shoulder strips, it doesn’t matter, as the tubes hang limp side by side.
The tubes are attached along the beaded strips by piercing holes with an awl at specific intervals; the thongs are threaded through them and tied together on the inside.
Production and Attachment of Scalps
The final step was the production and attachment of scalp locks made of real human hair. Individual strands are fitted with a thong, reinforced with sinew and hide glue, and wrapped with white porcupine quills. I processed red-dyed horsehair in the same way, which creates a color contrast on the bibs.
The scalps, along with the horsehair, are attached to the bibs—both front and back—in the same way the ermine tubes are attached along the strips. Attaching scalps to the bibs while having ermine tubes or leather fringes around the strips was quite common for Transmontane shirts.
A Detective Ending
When the shirt was finished and published, the story came to an unexpected close. A collector from the USA contacted me; he owns the second shoulder strips that pairs with the one used as the model for my reconstruction. It was thus confirmed that the original historical shirt had indeed been dismantled and its parts set out on separate journeys through the world—one shoulder strips ended up recycled as a pouch in a private collection, while the other was sold separately at an auction in the USA. Thanks to this reconstruction, their design has symbolically reunited into a single whole after many decades.
