If you are fond of playing Indian and have no Indian costume, you ought to be happy. That seems a strange thing to say, but the reason is this: You can have all the fun of making a costume yourself, you can learn how to do it in the Indian way, and after it is finished it will be far more like the dress worn by Western Indians than those that are sold ready made.
Suppose we begin with the belt.
It is woven on a loom—not an Indian loom, which, as perhaps you know, was a bow strung with several strings which served as the warp threads for the belt or chain. Possibly you have a loom of your own and know how to use it; but if not you can either buy one for twenty-five or fifty cents, or, what is still better, make one yourself. A simple, good loom may be made from a cigar box.
A Home Made Bead Loom
| Materials Required: | An oblong cigar box, about 2 ½ inches deep, |
| 4 small sticks of wood 2 ½ inches long and ½-inch square, | |
| 16 ½-inch screws, | |
| 6 small screw eyes, | |
| 6 tacks, | |
| A sharp knife, | |
| A screw driver, | |
| A hammer, | |
| Sand paper. |
Choose a good strong cigar box, one that is quite shallow, and remove the cover. Rule a line one inch from the bottom of the box on each long side and draw a sharp knife across the line several times until the upper part separates easily from the lower without injuring it. Smooth the tops of the sides with sandpaper. Fasten each of the small sticks of wood inside a corner of the box, to strengthen it. This is how it is done. Drive one of the half-inch screws up from the bottom into the end of the stick, another into it through the side, and two, one near the top and one lower down through the end of the box, into the stick. On the outside of the box at one end six round-headed tacks are driven in a row an inch and a half from the top and about three-quarters of an inch apart. Drive six screw eyes in the same position on the opposite side. Cut a row of notches on the top of each end of the loom, about one-sixteenth of an inch apart, and deep enough to hold a thread. The loom is then ready for weaving. Chalk-white beads are much used by the bead-weaving Indians like the Sioux and Winnebagos, especially for the ground-work of their belts. Let us choose them for the background of the belt and weave the design in Indian red and blue.
Indian Bead Belt
| Materials Required: | 1 bunch chalk white beads, No. 3-0, |
| 4 skeins each Indian red and dark blue beads, No. 3-0, | |
| 1 spool No. 60 white linen thread, | |
| 1 spool No. 90 white linen thread, | |
| A No. 12 needle, | |
| A piece of wax. |