Women's Traditional

The Women’s Traditional Dance is a slow and graceful style of contemporary powwow dancing. It is performed at cultural events and powwows. Some tribes will dance this dance stationary (in one spot) or with organized hops around a dance arbor. Northern Cheyenne girls and women, however, will bend their knees, and will always move one step forward with each drum beat. Sometimes they will swing a shawl on their arm, and they might carry a hawk fan or additional scarf in the other hand. Traditionally, Cheyenne women don’t carry eagle fans because it is taboo for a woman to touch an eagle feather. Though there have been some special exceptions made in Cheyenne history where certain women have been permitted to touch eagle feathers for special reasons. 

Cheyenne women’s traditional dresses are called T-dresses because when you lay them flat across a table, they are in the shape of the English letter “T”. They are often decorated with fabric ribbon, but are sometimes more traditionally decorated with cowrie shells, elk teeth, or trade beads. They also wear moccasins and leggings which are two separate garments that cover up the feet and the ankles. This style comes out of traditional concepts of modesty, but also out of protection from the elements. (If one was to walk across the Great Plains in flip flops and shorts, one’s legs would get all scratched up from all the brushes and weeds on the prairie. Thus, the idea of covering up one’s legs with leggings (made out of buckskin) was a good way of protecting yourself from those elements.)

Cheyenne women also wear other beadwork accessories. Traditional Cheyenne outfits are meant to emulate those of the traditional dresses they used to wear prior to colonization. Though the outfits are more colorful in modern day times, the colors and designs all still have special meaning to each dancer and the family that they come from.