
A Powerful Look Back on Rekindled: Contemporary Southeastern Beadwork
Since its opening, the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum has worked diligently to curate exhibits that share, uphold, and honor Seminole culture and history. This week we begin looking back with the first in our “Exhibit Archive” blog series. This series highlights just some of the incredibly special installations that have found a home at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum over the years. Today, we are looking at Rekindled: Contemporary Southeastern Beadwork. Opened in 2017, this exhibit shines a spotlight on an almost lost tradition, and the handful of dedicated artists who have worked to reclaim it.
In our featured image, you can see a detail shot from one featured pieces. Image via the Seminole Tribune, by Beverly Bidney.
Reclaiming Tradition
When many people think of artistic traditions of the southeastern tribes, beadwork does not come to mind. Up until around the 1990s, many did not think that southeastern tribes had much of a beading tradition at all. But, this is simply not true. Instead, like so much of Indigenous history, these artistic traditions were unfortunately fractured over time.
Forced removal of Indigenous peoples from the southeast during the 1830s onward had far reaching effects. The resultant disease, war, starvation, and eradication of so many people during this period meant many, many traditions, artistic and otherwise, were lost. Indian Removal broke apart families and communities. But, it also created cultural cracks that to this day are still being dealt with.
This exhibit in many ways highlights a direct response from artists to these cultural cracks. Not only are they rekindling their own artistic traditions, but they are reclaiming them. Carol Cypress, one of the Seminole artists featured in the exhibit, shared: “When my grandsons wear the bandolier and dance with it, the people that’s gone now, we don’t really know who they were, but they’re still alive with us… And it was to honor them.”

Carol Cypress’ grandson wearing a bandolier bag she made for him. Via the ATTK Rekindled Curricula.
Brian Zepeda shared similar sentiments. “When it comes to the beadwork that I’m producing today, they tell a story really because it’s not just the beadwork,” he said. “They tell a story of where we’ve come from, things we’ve done in the past.”
Southeastern Beadwork
While researching and rekindling these beadwork traditions, many of the artists also gained a clearer picture of the importance and place of beadwork in the southeast prior to the devastation of Indian removal. While women would wear beaded necklaces, purses, and moccasins, beadwork was predominantly made for men. The height of southeastern beadwork was from the 18th century through to Indian Removal. Jerry Ingram, a featured artist in Rekindled, noted in a First American Art Magazine article from 2015 that “Humans are just like peacocks. All the males want to show off.” Pedro Zepeda, brother of Brian Zepeda, quipped in the same article that “One thing about Seminoles, we tend to dress up more than other tribes.”
And these pieces definitely give a visual impact! Southeastern beadwork includes many natural elements, as well as the strategic use of negative space. Artists make pieces like bandolier bags, garters, and sashes with fine seed beads on wool. In the post-contact era the southeastern tribes would use trade beads, replacing earlier shell. These contemporary renditions of traditional designs share many similar themes and colors. Below, you can see a fine detail shot of a bandolier bag created by Brian Zepeda that was included in the Rekindled exhibit.

Via the Winter 2018 Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum AQ, 2017 Annual Report.
The Seminole War
Prior to removal, southeastern tribes wove beadwork and vibrant artistic traditions into everyday life. During the Seminole War period, beadwork also played an important role. Both Carol Cypress and Brian Zepeda shared during the exhibit that as they talked to elders and researched, they learned more about the intention behind beaded items like bandolier bags. Men would wear bandolier bags made of wool and trade beads, with intricate designs. Carol shared that “During the war time, they said that if a man was wearing [a bandolier bag] and they came by you see how he looks in front, but if you turn around and look back it looks different from the back, so that was supposed to disguise that there were more people fighting.”
Brian Zepeda stated that the designs could also be identifying. He shared that “One of those things that was passed on to me was the usage of them during wars because the bandolier bags have designs on them that were sometimes specific to a clan or a family so when you were out on a battlefield or in a battle you could look around and see if you were in the right place at the right time.”
Thus, heartbreakingly, the traditions that they used to keep them safe during this fractious period in Seminole history were thought lost to time. But, not forever.
The Exhibit
Rekindled opened on January 15, 2017 at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum. This incredible exhibit featured the work of a number of artists from the southeast who were piecing together the lost threads of their tribal traditions. The exhibit included art from Roger Ellis Amerman (Choctaw), Karen Berry (Cherokee), Martha Berry (Cherokee), Carol Cypress (Seminole), Jerry Ingram (Choctaw/Cherokee), Jay McGirt (Creek/Seminole), and Brian Zepeda (Seminole).
In the exhibit text, it reads:
Starting in the 1990s, artists like Martha Berry, Carol Cypress, and Brian Zepeda were searching in museum collections throughout the country as well as asking what their elders remembered about these old traditions. Some types of beading were happening in these Southeastern tribes but they represented the ways of other, distant Native American tribes. These Southeastern artists looked for the stories and ways of their own cultures. As they taught themselves, they taught others. In some cases, they found like-minded Southeastern native artists taking the same journey to rediscovery. Slowly the old traditions have come alive again.
The Artists
Some, like the late-Jay McGirt, dedicated their lives to reclaiming their Indigenous traditions. Others were led there, either through their own interest, family members, or by chance. Martha Berry shared in a First American Art Magazine interview that “The biggest problem in reviving southeastern beadwork is there is so little in Oklahoma.” The first southeastern beadwork she saw was a red wool bandolier bag at the Denver Art Museum. “It blew me away,” says Berry. “I thought, ‘What is that?!’”
Now a teacher and elder for the Cherokee Tribe, Berry teaches both the history and the art. “Everything I do is to educate people and get the beadwork in front of their faces. When I do a class, I do an hour of history and flood them images.”
Jerry Ingram also studied museum collections to try and recreate beaded pieces. “I just wanted to do it, so I looked at things in the museum and figured out how they were made. I read all kinds of books,”
However their journey developed, all have been drawn to reviving these traditions as an extension to reviving lost pieces of their culture
Their Own Words
In a Seminole Tribune article about the exhibit opening, Carol Cypress shared what inspired her designs, and her search for lost traditions: “My ideas came to me in my sleep,” she said, “I’ve been trying to teach someone how to do bandolier beadwork to keep the art form alive.” Cypress created four bandolier bags for the exhibit, two with traditional designs and two of her own creation and interpretation. Below, you can see one of her own contemporary designs. Cypress was inspired by Wheeden pottery, found on Wheeden Island on central Florida’s gulf coast. The pottery was found underwater, which is why Cypress made the bag blue.

Carol Cypress bandolier bag, via the ATTK Museum.
In the same article, Brian Zepeda shared his own journey with southeastern beadwork. He began his art in 1996, when the late Billy L. Cypress (Carol’s husband) asked him to make a reproduction for the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum. “I did it over and over again until I was happy with the way it looked; it took me approximately three times to make it and get it right,” he said. Soon after he began making moccasins, leggings, sashes, and more bandolier bags. Zepeda included two bandolier bags, a pair of moccasins, and a one sash. Below, you can see Brian Zepeda (right), Carol Cypress (center), and then-curator Rebecca Fell (left) at the exhibit opening in 2017.

Via the ATTK Rekindled Curricula.
Looking for more? The Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum has created two age-specific educational resources and activity books based on the Rekindled exhibit.
What’s Happening Now at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum?
Check back in with Florida Seminole Tourism in a few weeks for a deeper look at some of their newest exhibits! For now, their latest exhibit installations can be found below:
Miniature Marvels: Masterpieces Reimagined in the Mosaic Gallery
History Through Art – featuring newly acquired collection pieces in the Nook Gallery
Planning a visit? Stop by the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum November 1-2, 2024 for the American Indigenous Arts Celebration (AIAC). Join the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum to celebrate Indigenous art, music, culture, food, crafts, dance, and more! All guests will receive complimentary admission to the Museum during the event.
Author Bio
Originally from Washington state, Deanna Butler received her BA in Archaeological Sciences from the University of Washington in 2014. Deanna moved to Florida in 2016. Soon, she began working for the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Deanna was the THPO’s Archaeological Collections Assistant from 2017-2021. While at the THPO, Deanna worked to preserve, support, and process the Tribe’s archaeological collection. She often wrote the popular Artifact of the Month series and worked on many community and educational outreach programs. She lives in Lakeland, FL with her husband, two sons, and dog.