Customer Reviews

Encyclopedia of American Indian Costume

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The author does a good job addressing the many different native peoples of North America in this book, but I was disappointed by the lack of pictures. You'd think she could have at least put a sketch in with each tribal description. No one who goes into this book without already knowing what these clothing articles look like is going to come out of this book with a mental impression of what an outfit from any given tribe might have looked like. It's still an interesting reference and I'm glad to have it, but I can't recommend it for schools.

This book is the best general guide I've ever seen to the different costume practices of each major North American Indian tribal group. The book has only two significant drawbacks for the general reader: not enough illustrations (though many are rare photographs almost 100 years old) and unclear chronology. All tribes' costume changed after European contact and such contact occurred at different times for different areas; these factors can make it challenging to pick the relevant information from the text. However, I still learned a lot from this book.

For anyone fascinated by the customs and dress of the American Indians, this book is a rich reference. The adaptation of materials found in nature along with the practicality of clothing in different regions provides interesting reading for hours. Anyone who thinks all Indians dressed alike in drab buckskins or adorned themselves or wore their hair alike needs to read about the skill and beauty involved in making their wonderful clothing and jewelry. It would be nice to see more photos and some color pictures, but it is still a great book! My only disappointment is in the choice of the word "costume" in the title. Go to any Pow Wow and you'll see today's Indians cringe at that term as it implies dressing up as something they are not. "Regalia" is their preferred term for their outfits. I recommend this book.

We bought this book hoping to learn about American Indian costumes. What we got was a brief summary on each tribe, nothing much in depth nor nothing we had not known before. We were hoping for pictures. There are very few pictures of Indians in costume in the book. The best picture is on the cover. If we had seen the book before we bought it, we probably would have passed on it.

An interesting book for all who want to research the dress/costume of the great american tribes. However the illustrations are in black and white only.

This book is very informative, with detailed text describing Native American costume, but more illustrations would be helpful. The few illustrations that are included are not always reproduced well, possibly an artifact of working with more-than-a-century-old photographs. A few of the descriptions of the photographs are not completely accurate, as in the case of a dentalium shell choker described as a hair pipe choker. Otherwise I believe it will be very useful in my quest to reproduce traditional Native American women's clothing.