Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana
Yellow broadcloth, ribbons, felt
National Museum of the American Indian-Smithsonian Institution, 25.5183

Patricia Bird, an Assiniboine-Sioux cloth artist, designed and fabricated this appliqué ribbon shirt in 1981 on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. In describing the garment, which she constructed from yellow broadcloth, ribbons, and felt, she said: 

"This contemporary men's ribbon shirt was designed for dress-up or for everyday wear. The designs are based upon the Sioux [Lakota] medicine wheel. The circular medicine wheel (with the crossed spokes) has many meanings, which vary from tribe to tribe. The round shape itself represents the circle of life and the disks remind us of blanket strip circles. The color for east is represented by yellow, the sacred plant for this direction is tobacco; south is represented by red (cedar); west is represented by black (sage); and north is represented by white (sweet grass). Turquoise-green symbolizes Mother Earth, and blue is the sky. Feathers of the sacred golden eagle often adorn special items and clothing, and the cascading ribbons represent the flowing fringes of the war shirts."