These are examples of horse regalia that we have. This is a teepee bag I use on horses. This is a bonnet case that I made. That is also used on a horse. I’ve got the old style trade bells on there.

The way that these were made a long time ago is they would take the hide and while it was still wet they would stake it down in the ground with the first side down and the ladies would tediously free hand the designs onto the hide with different paints. There would be earth oakers and then they would cover it with another layer of, like hide glue, to protect that surface. Then it was turned over and the hair was pounded off from it and it would make this rawhide area around here a little bit white. This one here isn’t pounded so you can see through it a little bit. You can see that it has got the dark material behind it but that is how they would prepare those and it would take a lot of time.

That is what we call ‘isáaptakay. The skins that were used for transporting different things to different areas and often times those were used in ceremonies and trading foods such as this to different family members or different individuals. They would take a whole bunch or different dried foods that they had and they would put them into these skins. That was like a unit of trade. One ‘isáaptakay for maybe a blanket or something like that and they would just go back and forth.