Bill Boyd

As a child, Bill Boyd spent much of his time searching for arrowheads on the riverbanks of his family's ranch. This early curiosity grew into a lifelong passion for Native American history and culture. An avid reader, Bill built an extensive library of books on various tribes, gaining a deep appreciation for their world. After retiring from a successful career in teaching, he dedicated even more time to studying and collecting artifacts. Bill was always moved by the beauty and significance of these pieces. He had a particular affinity for Cheyenne beadwork.

Cheyenne Indian Arts

The Cheyenne Tribe of the Great Plains of North America is well recognized, widely respected, and highly admired --- especially for their fine traditional material culture. Beginning early in historic times Cheyenne beadwork became particularly noteworthy. This is true for both the Southern and Northern divisions of the Tribe. As among most tribes, men concentrated on hunting, caring for family horses, medicinal curing procedures, ceremonial activities, as well as making ceremonial paraphernalia, horse gear and weapons. Cheyenne women have always produced the numerous objects needed for general use --- particularly clothing, parfleches and other types of storage containers, along with items such as blanket strips and pouches of many types. Since typical Native American clothing lacks actual pockets, pouches of various sizes have served to carry all sorts of things --- money, matches, powdered ceremonial paint, personal medicine charms, and other things. Pouches include tobacco bags, strike-a-lite bags, paint bags, and personal ceremonial medicine containers.

One prevalent beadwork technique used by the Cheyenne as well as other Plains tribes is the "lane stitch," formerly known as the "lazy stitch." Basically, six to twelve so-called pony beads or seed beads are strung together on cord-like threads of animal tendon called sinew. Sinew threads are commonly used to sew pieces of leather together to form entire articles, as well as to decorate articles with beads. In decorating an object, the threads usually pierce only the surface of the hide object at each end of the individual rows of beads. These rows are closely applied next to each other, thus forming lanes which can be applied individually to objects, or many lanes adjacent to each other --- thus covering an area or the entire object. Motifs and designs are formed simply by changing bead colors. This can be seen on many of the knife sheaths, tobacco bags and moccasins in the Bill Boyd collection.

Benson L. Lanford
September 2024