Great Lakes Ribbonwork

Native American ribbonwork is a unique method of applied decoration to garments rooted in Indigenous aesthetics and realized with European materials. Its dynamic record spans early encounters between Native people and Europeans, interactions and transactions in the Great Lakes region throughout the fur trade, and the impacts of 250 years of shifting federal laws and official Indian policies. Contextualizing ribbonwork in the arc of US history reveals hard truths of Native Americans’ lived experience, along with the power, meanings, and cultural significance the practice holds for the people who make it and display it through wearing. Ribbonwork exists within and is an outcome of relationality that encompasses relationships, interdependence, and accountability. Its continuous practice as active resistance that proclaims Indigenous presence and identity—despite expansionist pressures and hostile government policies that separated Native people from their homelands and sought their complete assimilation into the dominant culture—signifies survivance.