Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1996–1997
Paiute-Shoshone Dress Making:
Francine Tohannie, Harriet Allen and Mary Christy
As with many folk artists, Francine Tohannie
learned to make dance dresses by picking up a little
information here, a little there, watching closely, asking
a lot of questions, trying things herself, and learning
from her mistakes. She has a natural artistic bent but
grew up in the city of Reno without much awareness
of her tribal traditions. It was only when she went away
to an Indian boarding school in Utah and met students
with rich cultural knowledge from other tribes that
she became aware of what she was missing, and began
making an effort to teach herself.
When Francine begins work on a dance dress, the
pattern she uses is only in her head. She has an understanding
of how the dress is put together and how
it should fit, so she starts with the wearer’s measurements
and a rough shape, and refines from there. Her
apprentices Harriet Allen and Mary Christy had hoped
to make buckskin dresses, but they couldn’t afford the
price of hides (and it takes three hides to make a dress)
so they started with fabric—Harriet felt less nervous
working with cloth rather than expensive skins for her
first attempt anyway. Her green fabric is cut in a simple
T shape, then decorated with fabric appliqués in geometric
Paiute or floral Shoshone designs. Then she
adds decorations of shells, beads, teeth, bones, feathers
and other natural materials.
The dress is only the foundation of a dance outfit,
however; the completely dressed pow wow dancer
will have a shawl (with hundreds of individually sewn
strands of fringe around the edge), moccasins and leggings,
a belt, wrist cuffs, a necklace and other jewelry,
beaded hair ties and barrettes. For a girl or woman to
make her own outfit is a sign of great accomplishment
and pride. All three women work with a youth dance
group in Fallon, where they live, and hope to be able to
teach the kids how to start making their dance outfits.
Francine has quite a collection of her own dance
outfits, including a beaded buckskin dress that weighs
about 20 pounds, and a jingle dress, decorated with 365
conical tin “jingles” made from tobacco can lids. Many
dresses are decorated more heavily on the back than the
front, because the front is covered by the dancer’s long
braids and jewelry. She has also made dance outfits for
her son, who is a grass dancer, and for other people in
the area. Pow wow dancing is not indigenous to Nevada,
but has been brought in from Plains Indian traditions
and has become a new tradition among Nevada’s
tribes. Pow wows are held all across the state, but Francine
and Harriet agree that the best place for traditional
Great Basin singing and round dancing is at the annual
Pine Nut Festival in Schurz in September.
The future of any tradition lies with a community’s
children. Harriet is the education coordinator for the
Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe and sees her learning of
dressmaking as just one step in a long process that she
will pass on the her youngsters. Her own learning is also
something she sees as a process, and the apprenticeship
has only whetted her appetite to go to more complex
projects, like a beaded cape. “We’ll be at this for the
next ten years,” Francine laughs.
Harriet Allen (left) working on her dance dress
with the help of Francine Tohannie.
Francine Tohannie shows
a beaded buckskin dress she made.
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