Cherokee hairstyles
Early Cherokee clothing: Tsiyu Gansini, Cherokee chief (late 1700s AD) – Cherokee hairstyles
Like most people, Cherokee people used their clothing and hairstyles to show that they were Cherokee and different from their neighbors.
Who were the Cherokee?
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What made Cherokee men look different from other people living in North America at this time was their haircuts. Cherokee men shaved most of their hair off and just had one lock at the top of their heads.
Deerskins, bark, and hemp
According to early Spanish explorers, Cherokee people made some of their clothing out of deerskins or the skins of other animals. They wove other clothing out of bark strips or strands of hemp. (Apparently they didn’t spin.)
What is hemp?
Men’s clothes and women’s clothes
In summer, Cherokee women wore skirts down just below their knees, sometimes made of deerskin or by sewing together smaller rabbit skins, and sometimes woven out of bark strips or hemp. Men wore shorts and long shirts made out of deerskin that came down past the top of their high boots.
Cherokee shoes
Many Cherokee men had tall rawhide boots, up above their knees, to protect their feet and legs from thorn bushes when they were hunting. (The Cherokee didn’t make leather, either). The boots had fringes cut along their tops.
What is leather?
Women just wore low moccasins on their feet, because they didn’t go into the forest so much. Children generally went barefoot or wore moccasins in cold weather.
Clothes were expensive
When they were working hard, people didn’t wear much clothing, just shorts for men and mini-skirts for women. In general, clothing was expensive and hard to get, so most people wore as little as they could get away with. Hardly anyone could afford to change their clothes much.
Feather cloaks and Cherokee clothing
In the winter, people also wore fur cloaks and long deerskin capes tied around them to keep warm. Sometimes, like the Maya and Aztecs further south, or like Pueblo people further west, they made fancy cloaks out of feathers sewn together.
Did you find out what you wanted to know about early Cherokee clothing? Let us know in the comments!
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This was so helpful!!!! Thank YOU
Thanks, Grace! I’m glad we could help.