I was attempting to be helpful in the most civil way I could when seeing your posts. Though I can often be overly blunt. (And yes I get lectured everyday about that!)
I would suggest a good reading of "
A Creek Warrior for the Confederacy" as a great place to illustrate your relying on common old stereotypes regarding CW era Indians. It was written by a Captain in one of those regiments named George Washington Grayson. He didn't even write it for publication but for his descendants, who published it later much to what I imagined would've been a headache to him by his writings.
His first hand accounts are hands down the most valuable resource for what you wish to undertake, (if you wish to do it right and not how you want to think how they were) and as I recall offhand, there's even mention of how some of the men attempted to make moccasins, but had laughable results because it was literally a lost skill to them. He makes many, many mentions of how he and others would try to remember skills and things old timers taught them when they were little, but always to laughable results because they were not roaming Natives at all any more. Most of them tended to be literate, and WAY more educated than whites due to the tribes in the nations having publicly funded schools for all children, something whites didn't even have at that time, and the Nations sending all they're best students to colleges in Arkansas on the Nation's dime whether they liked or not. They were more like modern Americans than anyone else in the CW!
No, they were NOT savages in tipis, they had frame houses, hewn log cabins, towns with stores, and so much else. Sure they may have at times imitated stuff like war paint, but such actions were colored by then-modern stereotypes than anything historical, much like the white propaganda North and South, (though primarily North…) saying they were savages.
Heck after the Battle of Cane Hill in Arkansas, Federal officers found the college there had had a lot of the college books and "an electrical gadget" looted by soldiers of the 3rd Indian Home Guard! And they found the men reading them to take home! White Northern or Southern troops would've looted other items, but the Indians books to read…
("
Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign" by William Shea is another excellent resource I'd recommend for your studies. I am a bit biased as to me and my opinions it's the most engaging and enjoyable read of any CW book.)
I earnestly wish you luck in your endeavors, I really do. But if you wish to cling to racist old stereotypes, please don't call yourself historically correct. I've no wish to stand in the way of anyone's fun, but if real history matters to you, not Hollywierd history, please research yourself. A good researcher and reenactor always twists opinions to suit facts, instead of facts to suit opinions.
Or is it only natives that were not supposed to see feathers as a source for adornment?
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