Cherokee Indian Clothing Examples
The Cherokee Indians have a rich heritage that includes individual elements unlike any other society's. Some of those elements include their style in hair and body modification, but mostly it includes clothing style. Clothes worn by Cherokee Indians don't fit the typical idea of Native American appearance.
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Tear Dress
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One of the most important pieces of clothing in Cherokee tradition is the tear dress, according to the history website cherokeebyblood.com. The dress is made in shirt-dress style and it is the official tribal dress for Cherokee women. The tear dress is meant to be loose enough for women to do most everything in it, from labor on farms to cooking and cleaning.
Men's Clothing
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According to native-languages.org, men wore mostly breechcloths, which fit our idea of a loincloth, except it fell farther down the legs, making for a warmer garment. Leggings would be worn along with it in colder climates. It was common for men not to wear shirts, although those Indians living in the Great Plains sometimes wore war shirts made from buckskin.
Footwear
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Footwear was fairly gender-neutral. Boots, moccasins or some combination of the two was the norm. According to nativetech.com, these were shoes made of rawhide and leather, and they had thick soles, meant to protect the wearer from a variety of weather conditions. Some had softer soles for walking in less-trying climates.
Materials
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The materials from which Cherokees made their clothing varied, but key to making clothing was tanned deerskin, according to cherokee-indians.com. Women's skirts were made from plants woven together, and when the apparel didn't come from deer, it came from cattle and fibers such as mulberry bark. Feathers were rarely seen; headdresses were not traditional among the Cherokee people.
Other Pieces
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Miscellaneous clothing and accessories included belts, jewelry and headbands. Belts were often adorned with the same items that jewelry was made of, including beads from shells and clay, and headbands were made of leather or cloth from buffalo and deer hide or plants and bark. One sort of headwear was the coonskin cap, which did not initially belong to the white culture. It was, in fact, a creation of the Cherokees and was worn in the winter.
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Comments
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Lately Cherokees have been told some tales which we have believed to be false, as we can find no verification for them. It seems that a few decades ago the phony pow-wow circuits needed something "authentic" to sell to the gullible tourists, so they thought up something for the women called a "tear dress", along with the story that after the trail of tears some Cherokee women did not have scissors, so they had to tear material into strips in order to sew them together and make a dress. About the same time they put Cherokee men into "ribbon" shirts. Both are about as authentic as these "dream catchers" thought up about the same time for the tourist trade.
