Quilled ornament decorated with red and orange quills, dyed red feathers, and orange and purple horse hair.

Before contact with white explorers and traders, Plains women used porcupine quills to decorate clothing and other objects. Women in the Plains regions usually embroidered geometric polychrome designs with quills. They dyed the three to four inch long quills with vegetable and mineral colors, softened them with spit, and sewed them to leather with a needle. With white influence and trade, beads became more popular, though quillwork is still practiced (Furst and Furst 1982, 166). Women take great pride in their ability to produce exquisite quillwork. Some tribes, including the Blackfeet, Cheyenne, and Sioux, had quillwork guilds, and only women who created the best quillwork could be members, which meant that membership indicated high status and achievement (Dubin 1999, 272).