Treasures from Our West: Cheyenne doll

Originally featured in Points West in Summer 2010

Cheyenne doll

Made around 1870, this extraordinary Cheyenne doll stands twenty-seven inches high and wears the dress and ornaments worn by Cheyenne (Tsistsistas) women and girls of the same time period, as mothers and grandmothers typically patterned the clothing of a girl’s doll after the current fashion trends within a tribe. The doll is part of our Plains Indian Museum’s amazing Paul Dyck Plains Indian Buffalo Culture Collection.

The diverse materials used—tanned hide, muslin, glass beads, metal cones, cowrie shells, buffalo hair, commercial leather, German silver, porcupine quills, pigment, cotton cloth, and sinew—were those used in real clothing of the time and give the doll its intricate detail.

Cheyenne doll. The Paul Dyck Plains Indian Buffalo Culture Collection, acquired through the generosity of the Dyck family and additional gifts of the Nielson Family and the Estate of Margaret S. Coe. NA.507.133

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