Lakota Culture & Stories
Porcupine Quills, Dentalium Shells and Parfleche
in Lakota Jewelry
Porcupine quills, ocean shells, and deerhide each tell a different story. In the work of Oglala Lakota artists Timothy Red Cloud, Melissa Hill, and Sam Two Bulls, those materials take the form of earrings.
Quillwork
Before glass trade beads became widely available on the Plains, Lakota artists used porcupine quills to decorate clothing, bags, and horse gear. They sorted the quills by size, softened and flattened them, and often dyed them. Depending on the design, they could wrap, braid, or stitch the quills into place.
Quillwork continued as glass beadwork became more common. Today, Timothy Red Cloud carries on a family tradition of quillwork. He wraps dyed porcupine quills by hand to create geometric patterns on his hoop and teardrop earrings.
Dentalium Shells
How did an ocean shell become part of Lakota jewelry? Indigenous trade networks carried dentalium shells from the Pacific Northwest coast as far inland as the Great Plains. Lakota artists used these slender, tusk-shaped shells in jewelry and sewed them onto clothing. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian holds a pair of Oglala Lakota dentalium earrings dated 1883.
Today, Melissa Hill incorporates dentalium shells into her own earring designs, continuing a long history of using these shells as adornment.
Parfleche and Deerhide
On the Great Plains, a parfleche was a rawhide container used to carry dried food, clothing, and other belongings. Artists often painted the hide with geometric designs. A painted Oglala Lakota parfleche bag from Pine Ridge, made around 1890, is held by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Sam Two Bulls works with hide on a much smaller scale. He makes his parfleche earrings from deerhide, bringing a material familiar from Plains art into his own jewelry designs.
Meet the artists on our For Retailers page.
Why Horses Are Considered Relatives in Lakota Culture
For the Lakota, a horse has never been simply a means of transportation.
Horses became deeply woven into Lakota life — into hunting, travel, family life, warfare, ceremony, art and story. Over generations, that relationship became something more than usefulness. Horses became companions, partners and, in Lakota tradition, relatives.
That distinction matters.
A Relationship, Not Just an Animal
Many Indigenous cultures understand the natural world through relationships rather than through a strict division between humans and everything else.
The familiar Lakota expression Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ is commonly translated as “all my relations” or “we are all related.” It expresses an understanding that human beings exist within a much larger web of relationships that includes other people, animals, the land and the natural world.
Within that worldview, horses hold a particularly important place.
The relationship is sometimes described through the idea of the Horse Nation. A horse is not merely something a person owns. The relationship carries responsibilities: care, respect and recognition of what the horse gives in return.
Horses Changed Life on the Plains
Horses were introduced to North America by Europeans and gradually spread among Native nations. By the eighteenth century, horses were transforming life on the Great Plains.
For the Lakota, horses greatly increased mobility. Families could travel farther and carry more belongings. Hunters could pursue buffalo more effectively. Horses played important roles in trade and warfare, and ownership of horses could represent wealth and generosity.
But measuring the importance of horses only by what they allowed people to accomplish misses much of the story.
People depended upon their horses — and horses depended upon people.
That relationship required knowledge, trust and care. Individual horses had different abilities and temperaments. A skilled rider learned his or her horse just as the horse learned the rider.
The bond could literally mean the difference between life and death.
Honoring the Horse
The importance of horses became visible throughout Plains cultures.
Horses appeared in songs, stories, ceremonies and art. Some were decorated for important occasions. Horses associated with warriors might be painted with symbols connected to protection, accomplishments or spiritual experiences.
Horse imagery also appeared in objects created to honor a horse or commemorate the relationship between horse and rider. Among these are horse dance sticks — carved representations of horses carried in dances and ceremonies, sometimes created in memory of a particular horse or its accomplishments.
Historical Lakota artwork frequently shows horses alongside the people whose stories are being told.
The relationship with horses did not disappear when the buffalo-hunting era ended. It changed — and continued.
The Horse Today
Horses remain very much a part of life in Lakota communities today.
On the Pine Ridge Reservation, horses can be found on ranches, at community rides, horse relay races and rodeos, and in programs that introduce younger generations to horsemanship and Lakota teachings.
Rodeo is an especially visible part of contemporary horse culture. Young riders may grow up learning to ride, rope and care for horses within their families before competing in youth rodeos and larger events. Rodeos include events such as barrel racing, roping, bareback and saddle bronc riding, and bull riding. Indian Relay racing and other horse races are also part of contemporary Native horse culture.
Ranching continues across the reservation, where cattle, horses and, in some cases, buffalo are raised on the grasslands of western South Dakota. For families involved with horses, they may be working animals as well as partners in competition and recreation.
Community rides and horse programs provide another connection. They can bring together elders, adults and young people while passing along horsemanship skills, responsibility and cultural teachings.
In this sense, contemporary Lakota horse culture is not simply a remembrance of the buffalo-hunting era.
It continues to evolve.
A horse may be a ranch horse, a rodeo partner, a ceremonial presence, a teacher — and, for many people, a member of the family.
More Than a Symbol
It is easy from outside the culture to turn the Native American horse into a romantic image: a warrior galloping across the Plains, feathers flying behind him. The real relationship is more complicated and much more interesting. Horses worked. They carried people. They helped provide food. They transported families. They competed. They protected riders. They became sources of pride and wealth. They required feeding, training and care.
And they became part of people's lives.
That is why describing horses as relatives conveys something that words such as livestock, transportation or even companion cannot quite express.
It describes a relationship.
The Horse in Contemporary Lakota Art
That relationship can also be seen in contemporary Lakota art.
Oglala Lakota artist Alvin Ghost Elk Iron Cloud has been carving his distinctive horses since he was a teenager. Each is shaped and painted by hand, and no two are exactly alike.