Today open from 11 to 18
Examining the provenance of a rare Native American shirt
In collaboration with Arni Brownstone, Curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada
Gift of the naturalist Moïse-Etienne dit Stefano Moricand to the Academic Museum in 1838
MEG Inv. ETHAM K000207
Permanent exhibition: glass case N° 9
In 1838, the Academic Museum of Geneva acquired an Amerindian shirt from Moïse-Etienne (known as Stefano) Moricand. It was later transferred to the Museum of Ethnography. While the original inventory suggests that this garment comes from the southern Great Plains of the United States (Texas region), this same garment bears the mention of an origin from the northern Plains, perhaps even Canada, when the MEG reopens in 2014. To unravel a mystery surrounding the provenance of this extremely rare object, MEG is calling on Arni Brownstone, curator at the Royal Ontario Museum. Following are the initial results of an ongoing research project.
Shirt seen from the front. Photography : MEG/Johnathan Watts.
Shirt seen from the back. Photography : MEG/Johnathan Watts.
A research in progress at MEG since March 2019 aims to define the origin of an Amerindian shirt, offered by naturalist Moïse-Etienne (known as Stefano) Moricand (1779-1854) to the Academic Museum in 1838. According to the record of the period, it came from the southern Great Plains of the United States (Texas region). However, when the MEG reopens in 2014, the notice accompanying the shirt informs the visitor of a much more northern origin: "Northern Plains, Apsaalooké", a garment of the Crow Nation settled mainly in the current state of Montana. The same notice paradoxically suggests a Canadian origin, i.e. outside the Apsaalooké cultural zone.
Arni Brownstone (left) and independent researcher Denis Buffenoir (right) examine the double row of fringes hanging from the hem.
Photograph : MEG/Johnathan Watts.
Arni Brownstone (left) and Denis Buffenoir, an independent researcher, examine the sections painted on the shirt.
Photograph : MEG/Johnathan Watts.
The shirt is one of a kind. Shortly after the MEG reopened, it caught the attention of Arni Brownstone, curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, who was visiting Europe. Brownstone, one of today's leading experts on Crow art and the people of the Great Plains, expressed doubts about the veracity of the record. This led him, at the invitation of the MEG, to conduct a study on the provenance of the object, the conclusions of which validated the southern origin, and therefore the relevance of the information recorded in the oldest records of the Museum of Ethnography.
Detail of one of the sections painted on the back of the shirt. The painted blood drops clearly indicate that the warrior and his horse were hit by arrows.
Photograph : MEG/Johnathan Watts.
Detail of one of the sections painted on the back of the shirt. The bear paw with curved claws above the horse's head in the lower left corner gives the warrior the power to attack and defeat his enemy.
Photograph : MEG/Johnathan Watts.
Detail of one of the sections painted on the back of the shirt. The painted blood drops clearly indicate that the warrior and his horse were hit by arrows. Photograph : MEG/Johnathan Watts.
It is established that the shirt, then described as the "Garment of the Indians of Texas", was offered on April 21, 1838 to the Academic Museum by its founding secretary-treasurer, Moïse-Etienne Moricand. The transfer of the object to the young Ethnographic Museum preserves this information. However, research conducted at the MEG since 2019 reveals additional information. Certain circumstances strongly suggest that it was one of Moricand's colleagues in Geneva, Jean Louis Berlandier (1803-1851), who collected this shirt. Between 1828 and 1831, Berlandier collected botanical and zoological specimens for the Academic Museum. He was then a botanist and took part in an expedition to Texas, sponsored by the commission in charge of establishing the limits of the Mexican border. Moricand was in charge of registering botanical specimens from Berlandier on their arrival in Switzerland. Irrespective of the two men's natural history records, Berlandier's donation of the shirt seems particularly likely in light of a letter written on December 20, 1838. In this letter he states that he would like to offer his services to the Academic Museum. Finally, it should be noted that most of Berlandier's ethnographic collection in Texas was acquired posthumously by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the United States. All but one of the twenty objects collected by Berlandier are documented as being of Comanche origin. They constitute the oldest collection of this tribe preserved to date. Given Berlandier's presence in Texas and the nature of his collections, it is highly probable that the shirt examined here is also Comanche, or that of a population living south of the Great Plains. Finally, the collector mentioned in his journals his interest in the clothing of the populations encountered during his expedition. In particular, he noted that the Comanche wore two types of shirts, a "very short" type and another that reached knee length, further west near Santa Fe.
Recent research by Arni Brownstone further supports this hypothesis. The short garment, with sleeves and torso tightly fitted and completely closed except for an opening of about 4 cm in the armpit, is a clear departure from the standard "war shirt" found throughout the Plains region, except for several southern tribes. Perhaps the most remarkable feature is the sophistication and complexity of the fringes, as illustrated in the drawing below.
Schematic drawing of the contours and fringes of the shirt, back (top) and front (bottom). Electronically redesigned by Arni Brownstone. ETHAM K000207, Geneva Museum of Ethnography.
The fringes at the wrists, elbows, middle of the torso and neck are made by adding laces lined through the holes in the shirt. A double row of fringes is hung at the hem, consisting of a single fringe and an additional fringe added. Finally, fringed bands are inserted at the shoulder seams. Although there are several other areas in the Northern Plains where short-cut shirts coexisted with standard long shirts, this particular attention to fringes and tight long sleeves seems to be particularly associated with the Southern Plains.
While Arni Brownstone's investigation thus seems to definitively confirm the origin of the garment, it opens new perspectives on the study of the motifs depicted on it. The pictorial narratives of the shirt are war paintings that constitute one of the richest genres of Native American art. Created to publicize a man's wartime exploits within his community, they are painted on highly visible media, including painted animal skins, shirts, and the outer cover and inner linings of tipis. Fewer than forty paintings collected between 1800 and 1860 are known today. The skin shirt preserved by the MEG is, in light of current knowledge, the only surviving example of an artifact of this type from the Southern Great Plains. While the origin no longer seems to be subject to debate, we invite interested readers to download the research report [PDF 1 Mb] to delve into the world of the visual culture of the Plains' communities.
Reproduction of the sections painted on the shirt on the front (top) and on the back (bottom). Electronically redesigned by Arni Brownstone. ETHAM K000207, Geneva Museum of Ethnography.
Biography of Arni Brownstone
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA, Honours), Visual Arts, University of York University, 1974
Arni Brownstone is the Curator responsible for the Ethnographic Collections of the Americas at the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Canada)- His responsibilities include the development of exhibitions drawing on material from these areas. His research focuses on the visual culture of the Northern Plains Indians, with a particular interest in the figurative painting of the Plains Indians. He is currently working on a book of synthesis based on his reproductions of some 90 large war paintings.
https://www.rom.on.ca/en/collections-research/rom-staff/arni-brownstone