View other artifacts: Octopus Bag Cradle Hood

Learn about three Native American artifacts
in need of conservation in our Adopt-an-Artifact program

Three artifacts in the Kansas City Museum’s Dyer Collection of Native American artifacts have been selected by Museum staff as candidates for conservation, supported by the Friends organization. This doll is a significant piece in the collection and needs substantial work to preserve its integrity.

We appreciate your interest in this valuable work, and invite you to make a tax-deductible gift to support the conservation of this piece in the Dyer Collection of the Kansas City Museum.



Ida Dyer explains in her book Fort Reno that "young Indian girls were just as fond of their dolls as white girls." The significance can be found in this doll's age and the quality of construction. And it’s one of the oldest in the collection. There is also a strong resemblance between this doll and two others in the collection which suggests they were made by the same unidentified Native artisan.

Physical description:
Female doll with a cloth body; buckskin dress; yoke painted yellow, fringed with beaded bands across the top and bottom; leather belt with tin bands; red and white plaid cloth over a buckskin skirt, beaded in green with green fringe; leather leggings with separate moccasins on top with band of white, dark and light blue. From the Cheyenne tribe.


Condition:
The doll is heavily soiled and there is oxidization occurring on the belt. The fabric is brittle from age.

Recommended treatment:
     Clean
     Stabilize materials
     Consolidate any loose beads and replace any lost ones


About the Dyer Collection
Daniel Dyer and his wife Ida moved to what was then Indian Territory (modern day Oklahoma) in 1870. Dyer was first a clerk and then the Indian Agent at the Quapaw Agency, before moving to the Darlington Agency near Ft. Reno in 1884, while Ida served as a schoolteacher. Mrs. Dyer began collecting items from members of several tribes who had been moved off their lands to the fort; in some instances she purchased items she liked, other times she simply took what she liked, thinking of herself as a sort of anthropologist more than simply a collector of curios. The collection was fought over in court on more than one occasion but finally found a home at the Kansas City Museum in 1940.
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