As European settlers arrived in North America from the 15th to 19th centuries, they confronted an indigenous world where women often served as political leaders, healers and negotiators. But women were mainly assigned the duties of child-rearing, farming, cooking and sewing.
Men’s work was primarily hunting, trading, leading religious ceremonies, educating the next generation of warriors and fighting enemies.
The beaded wampum belts that Native Americans gave as gifts and to encourage other tribes to join their military campaigns were made by women, as was apparel fashioned from animal hides and decorated with beads and feathers. Creating these goods was referred to as “women’s work.”
As colonists introduced woven cloth and blankets to the New World (along with firearms, metal tools and alcohol), tribes began incorporating them into their cultural traditions. Women began fashioning distinctive patchwork skirts and creating designs still used on modern-day Pendleton blankets.
Once the U.S. government confined nomadic Indian tribes to reservations and the wars between settlers and indigenous peoples ended around 1900 after four centuries, Native culture didn't cease to exist. Making and selling jewelry, pottery, paintings and other art became a way for tribal members to celebrate their culture and earn money.
Thanks to the efforts of the Smithsonian Institution, which opened the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., in 2004, and museums such as the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the evolution of Native American "women's work" is widely recognized as art.
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