Woman's Hood: Eastern Cree Memory and Resistance
Our class visited just a few of these objects. Taken out of their cases, they were free for a few moments to receive our gazes. Most of us are outsiders. We cannot fully know these objects histories nor the truths they wish to tell. But what we can do, is listen.
So when the object assigned to me, the “woman’s hood,” was placed on a table for my viewing, I stood before it, trying my best to listen to what it could tell me. To the stories it could share. I have been tasked with the responsibility of sharing the story of this piece of cloth’s life. I wish to do so with respect to its original context. In its new context, my skin reflects the color of the ones who colonized its people and took it from its home. In recognition of my own whiteness and outsider status, I will be asking more questions than stating facts about the piece of cloth I have had the privilege to encounter.
When the staff of the Haffenreffer displayed the woman’s hood, I was surprised by the vibrancy of its colors. The blues, pinks, greens, and whites of its flowered design popped out as if they were beaded only a few days ago. The blue and red beaded strings that led to its bright orange tassels were perfectly aligned. And the pom-pom-looking puff of string stood gently at the top, as if it had never felt the wind blow. Was the hood ever used? Or was it a gift or sold to a European trader or collector? Under what circumstances did this hood leave its home?
The short Haffenreffer guide entry for the hood does not reveal the answers to these questions. It provides merely a description of materials and the tribe from which the hood originates. According to the catalog, the hood is made from a single panel of wool cloth that is sewn at the back. Furthermore, it has “three concentric bands of trailing floral design beadwork, edges reinforced with leather, bead edging and tassels with wool yarn finish, a silk thread tassel at the top, [and is] lined with cotton print fabric.” This mixture of wool, broadcloth, yarn, silk, thread, cotton, cloth, glass bead, sinew, and leather was carefully pieced together to form the 65.5 cm long and 27 cm wide hood that remains in the Haffenreffer collection today. While there is no specific information about the hood’s maker, we know that it is from the Eastern Cree of the James Bay area.
How did the hood make the journey from the eastern subarctic to Rhode Island? Made in the late 19th century, it was collected somewhere between 1962 and 1986. And in 1987, Haffenreffer curator Barbara Hail bought the hood from British collector June Bedford who had a large personal collection of Native American goods that she had auctioned. Current staff at the Haffenreffer speculate that Hail bought this hood specifically so that it would fill in a gap in the museum’s collection. In other words, the Haffenreffer had other objects from this region and time period, but not yet a woman’s hood – something the catalog describes as an “important part” of any subarctic collection.
So what makes this hood so “important?” In her book, Into the North, Barbara Hail first describes in detail the appearance of the hood and the intricate beadwork patterning, tassel fringe, and silk thread tassel that characterize both earlier types of hoods and this later design that demonstrates “artistic license.” In this example, Hail states “the central band is wider than usual, and the beadworker has filled in the rosettes, added lobes to the almond-shaped buds, and uses far more green than on most hoods. The beads are also slightly larger than on earlier examples” (181-182). She further describes the practical necessity of the hoods, which were a “necessary winter head and shoulder covering in the North” (182). According to Hail, while both men and women wore different varieties of the hoods in the late eighteenth centuries, it is clear that this hood was worn by women. According to Englishman Thomas Gorst’s 1670 journal (the earliest record of the hoods), men’s hoods were worn close to their necks (Oberholtzer 97). Meanwhile, Hail notes that thanks to the more extensive length of a female covering, the hood fully covers the woman’s back and helps protect from the snow and the winds (182).
The aesthetic beauty and pristine condition of this “woman’s hood” in the Haffenreffer, calls into question whether it was ever used as protection from unwanted snow or wind. So was it just a piece of purchased tourist art that was never worn? Or did the hood have a use other than its practical one as a protective head covering?
Uncovering
Barbara Hail herself uses the last line of her description to acknowledge her uncertainty about the hood’s true purpose. She writes, “It would be interesting to know more about the occasions on which they were worn, and whether they played a societal role other than as practical and beautiful head-coverings” (182).To uncover more of the hood’s story, I turn to several different sources that comment on the beaded hoods of the Cree people. According to an article by Paula Menarick of the Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute, the Eastern Cree of James Bay themselves called the hoods “e mitsuits utstuden” which translates roughly to “beaded hat” (Long 2012, 115). Recognizing that the object has a name in its home community’s own language is important. What does renaming the object a “woman’s hood” do to its identity? And what is lost in translation when we name the piece of cloth “hood” (and not hat) and all the associations that go along with this label? This question is heightened further when it is revealed that the peak of the hood’s tassel is called ahchaahkw, which translates as both spirit or the pompom on a hat. Perhaps hidden in this translation is a certain spiritual significance.
Menarick’s article further reveals that according to traditional Cree knowledge, designs on Cree clothing were a result “from inspiration with people through dreams, telling the owner’s life story through symbolism” (Menarick). These patterns and stories were subsequently shared with a bead worker who would attempt to display these visions through her beadwork designs. The hood was then given to the owner who wore the hood only during “traditional ceremonies, winter journeys, and special occasions” (Menarick).
It seems, then, that the hoods were not just practical, but precious as well. Since men’s and women’s hoods were both “highly honored” and “respected,” they were not worn by everyone, but rather only by “married women, wealthy families, or people gifted with shamanic powers” (Menarick).
The following words of indigenous woman Lily Pepabano, a member of the Cree community, describe the respect given to the hoods:
It is thus important to note that in the new context of the Haffenreffer, the hood then is not only locked away from its homeland, but is also forced into an unnatural environment – the indoors. What does it mean, then, to view the hood not only in a different cultural context, but in a place where hoods were explicitly forbidden to be – a place where it would be disrespectful for them to reside. Recognizing how the hood belongs outdoors is a recognition of the deeper meaning and purpose of the hood itself.According to my mother, there was an elderly lady who made these hoods for members of the community. When one was completed, it was never brought indoors. This was done out of respect for the one who made them. My mother said that her grandmother wore them while travelling. Even when she was old, she still walked everywhere when on a journey. When they arrived to where the camp was being made, she would walk to a small tree to hang her hood on it. It was only when they left camp again that she would wear it. (Menarick)
Shifts in Time
According to Menarick, the reasons why, over the course of the 20th century the hoods “fell out of use,” is “beyond the scope of the essay.” Scholar Cath Oberholtzer, however, has attempted to speculate why, as she writes, “It has been thought that as the proselytizing Anglican missionaries increased their efforts to discourage any traditional native expression…the hoods seem to have rapidly disappeared” (103-104). The next sentence of her work attempts to downplay and question the possibility that the oppressive forces of colonialism were responsible for the hoods’ disappearance. She writes, “This seems rather simplistic in consideration of the complex nature of social and material systems” (104). It seems, however, that the religious colonial forces are not a “simplistic” reason, but rather a complex and probable cause. Oberholtzer ends her article by stating, “Fortunately, these last remaining few exquisite examples have been preserved by being ‘institutionalized’” (104). Is the institutionalization of the remaining hoods “fortunate?” And if so, fortunate for whom? Perhaps the answer to this question lies in recognizing how colonial interactions impacted both the creation and eventual disappearance of the hoods.According to some documentation analyzed by Oberholtzer, representations of the hoods on dolls (starting with those of Eastern Cree origin in 1880 and later models by the British) seem to have shifted throughout the years. The intricate beadwork found in Haffenreffer’s hood is not found in the early dolls of Eastern Cree heritage. Therefore, we can speculate that incorporating the English rose pattern design – a symbol of British womanhood, love, and Christianity – is potentially an adaptation that enabled Cree women to allow “a traditional form” to “continue masked as it were with acceptable European iconography” (96). Most of the materials used for the hoods are also of European origin. Can we then look at the hood as a symbol of strategic resistance and survivance in the face of European influence? Or is it instead a tragic reminder of colonial violent impact?
Most of the records of journal entries that notice the hoods are Eurocentric descriptions that compare the hood’s design and function to European clothing and objects. The hoods have been described in comparison to Monkshoods, pillowcases, bags, and blankets (Oberholtzer 97). The hood was seen as different from English designs and thus stuck out as something “other” in the eyes of the Europeans. In an 1852 journal entry by Reverend E.A. Watkins, he notes that what made Cree clothing different from the English style was that some “wore the peculiar head-dress of the country ornamented with a [profusion] of beads” (97). How would the Eastern Cree themselves describe the hoods? It seems doubtful that they would consider their own garments “peculiar.”
Some records of Cree people remember that the hoods were worn by wealthier and married women only, and often in the context of feasts. Alice Erless, for instance, who is from south of Fort George and born in 1875, remarks that when men located caribou tracks and returned to tell the camp about it, there would be a celebration of singing and drumming and if a woman had a beaded cap she would wear it. In her words, “Everyone was happy.” The hoods seem to hold a special place in the hunting culture. Oberholtzer describes the process:
Could it also be that the hoods relate to the ancient practice of hunting disguises and wearing the skin of an animal? The men of some eastern subarctic indigenous cultures, including the East Cree, wore hooded coats of tanned caribou skin in order to signify that “the garment possessed the powers of speed, endurance, or cunning of the living animal, and was able to convey them to the wearer” (99). While it is not possible to confidently draw a direct comparison, the documented presence of the hoods in hunting rituals suggests the garment could have taken on a similar role of “propitiating the spirit of the caribou for hunting success” (100).If the caribou were located in an area where others were needed to drive them to the hunters, all would be dressed in their cleanest and finest clothing, and a woman who had a beaded cap would wear it. At the feast following a successful hunt, the women, with their beaded caps, danced in place holding onto the tent pole, and their backs to the fire in the middle of the wigwam. (99)
While it is impossible to be certain, I would speculate that the hood, particularly in an earlier form, may have spiritual significance in Cree society. As mentioned before, the tassel at the peak of the hood translates to both “spirit” and “pom-pom” in Cree language and has been suggested to “represent the spirit or the soul” (101).
Locked away in the Haffenreffer, the spiritual significance of the hood is hidden and perhaps disrespected. Additionally, just as the hood’s creation and patterns are a result of colonial interactions and influence, the acquisition of the object also marks the capture of the hood. The conditions under which the hood was taken are unknown. Perhaps the hood was sold to a European and then sold again, eventually being possessed by June Bedford, who sold the object to Barbara Hail.
A Journey
Though I cannot know the specifics of the hood’s journey to the Haffenreffer, in the midst of the third floor stacks at Brown’s Rockefeller Library, I was able to find a chapter in the book, Together We Survive: Ethnographic Intuitions, Friendships, and Conversations that describes the journey of one similar hood. In her article, “A Token of Remembrance: The Gift of a Cree Hood, Red River Settlement, 1844,” scholar Laura Peers writes about the first Anglican bishop (George Jehosephat Mountain) to visit the settlement by the Red River. He was given many gifts, including a Cree hood, which he passed down to his family, who later auctioned the collection to a private collector. In an exhibit at the Missionary and Colonial Exhibition, the label reads, “Headdress worn by squaws – made by Red River Indians – and given by them to Bishop Mountain.” (Using the derogatory word “squaws” in the label serves to demean the Natives and belittle their craftsmanship.)But Peers does recognize that the hood has a lot of stories to tell that go beyond racist labels. She writes:
When Bishop Mountain visited and preached in a settlement that Christianity had already overtaken, he wrote that Cree women were “busy up to the last moment in finishing some trifling token of remembrance which they were anxious to put in our hands” (112). We know that the bishop’s view of the hood was that of a “trifling token,” or an insignificant souvenir to which he felt entitled. But, as Peers asks, “What did such a hood mean within Cree culture, and what was intended by the gift of the hood?” (112).The hood is an intriguing piece. In the context both of Red River and of Cree cultural history, the hood suggests some of the complexities of change and continuity woven simultaneously into the processes of colonialism and identity formation. It says much about the meeting of tribal peoples with the global forces of trade and colonization, about the standard colonial narratives used to describe such encounters, and about the maintenance of identities and cultural boundaries in the face of pressures to acculturate. It also suggests how wide the gulf of misunderstanding could be across cultures: this hood meant very different things to its maker and to its collector. (108-109)
Meanwhile, to European collectors of Native-made artifacts, the hood would most likely represent an exotic object that would become a “trophy of imperial possession in the gentleman’s den.” (113). (Is not this displaying of possessions and “drama of displacement” the very nature of museums?) To Bishop Mountain, on the other hand, the gift of the hood would also be “a sign of savagery and the need for continued work and funding for Indian missions and missionaries” (113). Historically, exhibitions have displayed pre-Christian objects from around the world in order to gain funds for missionary societies while “providing entertainment.” To the bishop, the gift of the hood was like a prize that signified, as he wrote, the “humanizing influences of the Christian religion” and thus the victory of having “civilized” a group of Natives (113).
The hood should not be dismissed as merely a sign of acculturation, however. While Christian Crees did wear European-style clothing, the beaded embellishments allowed Crees to claim pride in their heritage and represented a sort of “layered identity rather than the erasure of an earlier Cree worldview” (114). Despite being a creation of mostly imported materials, Peers insists that this “does not diminish the fact that these were deeply meaningful and distinctively Cree objects” (115). Discovering the hoods’ precise “meaning” to the Cree identity, however, is beyond the scope of understanding for outsiders like Peers or myself. Nevertheless, we can still speculate that the hoods were performative “banners of identity” (showcasing a complex mixing of “traditional” and “modern” identity) while also containing sacred significance (since Cree women wore the hoods to honor animal spirits during the hunting rituals).
If the hoods originally were to honor and respect the spirit-beings’ gift of well-being, that may be why Christian Cree women chose to wear their hoods to church regularly. They grew to wear the hoods to honor both God and the animal spirits. Could it be then, that the disappearance of the hoods marked the domination of Christianity and the extermination and suppression of Cree culture? The “token of remembrance” Cree women gave to the bishop then may not have been exclusively for him to remember them, but also for them to remember themselves. In other words, wearing hoods allowed women to retain aspects of traditional Cree identity and spirituality while also still appearing suitable in the eyes of the European missionaries. The act of making the hood can thus be seen as an act of remembering – “a process of telling history within an Aboriginal context” – as well as an act of resistance (119). As Peers writes:
Whoever collected the hood originally may have praised the hood for its aesthetic, Victorian-style of beauty. But it is important to note that for the Cree, the hood may have been “a distinct symbol of respectability, one that operated within a continuing Cree tradition of sex roles, notions of proper women’s behavior, and Cree identity” (120).Hoods were thus an item of material culture that was used to negotiate colonial change. In their materials, in their meanings, and in their use at Christian missions, hoods ‘retained culturally significant features while concomitantly demonstrating an outward acceptance of non-native materials, symbolic referents, values, and expectations.’ They were uniquely objects of both Cree history and colonial history. (117)
Women and the Hood
I was originally drawn to choose the hood because of its description as specifically a “woman’s hood,” since as a woman myself I am strongly aware of the absence and exclusion of women’s voices from historical narratives. Peers claims that indeed the hood “speaks strongly to women’s history,” since though Bishop Mountain and other collectors may not have recorded the names of the women who made the hoods, “they left their work as evidence of ” (123). Peers notes that Sherry Farrell Racette has stated that women’s artistic work “gives evidence to the critical role they played in maintaining a certain stable and continuous core of ancient knowledge” (124). In other words, the women remember their identity in the making of the hood, while forcing us to remember them in the process.Because both Bishop Mountain and I are locked into our own cultural perspective and see with a colonial gaze, we are both unaware of the Cree significance of the hood and also miss “the Aboriginal meanings embedded in the act of the gift itself” (121). Rooted in this encounter – both Bishop Mountain’s receipt of a hood and my ability to view it at a museum – is the presence of a power imbalance and a privileging of European and outsider research and knowledge as well as museum institutions’ authority.
Therefore, it is important to acknowledge that despite the research I have done, I cannot claim to ever fully understand the hood’s symbolism or purpose to the Cree peoples themselves. Instead, I can only speculate and ask questions, attempting to weave an inherently flawed narrative of this object with which I have had the honor to interact. An object whose initial creation and current life in a museum is a result of the violence and trauma of colonial forces. An object whose colors still shine vibrantly in the face of destruction. An object that survives.
