April 8, 2011

‘The Raven Takes the World’


I love when I come across random snapshots of Native fashion in books. Here's a picture and schpeel of Dorothy Grant's Haida wedding dress called 'The Raven Takes the World,' found in Totems to Turquoise:

The dress is made of white deer hide and silkscreened with a Haida design. Raven, the Transformer, is depicted holding the four corners of the earth with his human hands. The dress was made in honor of Grant’s mother. The edging of the bodice is beaded with mother-of-pearl beads and glass trade beads, and the three-tiered body has hand-cut fringe.

The dentalium headdress, by Marianne Jones (Haida), was commissioned by Grant in 1994 to match the wedding dress. It was inspired by the headdresses worn by Salish tribes.