Eagle
Plume spent his life collecting, selling, and appreciating American
Indian art and culture. He touched the lives of many people with
his friendship, ready smile, and many stories. Before his death
in 1992, he established the Eagle Plume Foundation and also saw
to it that his shop would carry on under the guidance of his adopted
daughter Ann, her husband Dayton, and their daughter, Nico. Ann
and Nico are enrolled members of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and
the family has been involved for years with Indian art and culture.
The whole family spent summers going to powwows and visiting Ann
and Nico’s reservation in Southeastern Montana until they
began working for Eagle Plume in the late seventies.
Dayton grew up on the
prairies of Wyoming, always having an interest in Indian people
and their art. He and Ann met while he was teaching school on the
Wind River Reservation and soon married. He remains the backbone
of the shop, possessing a special wit and knowledge of Indian art,
setting the happy tone at Eagle Plume's.
Ann grew up in the small
village of Birney, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.
Her Cheyenne name is Maxaaehma’heone (Medicine Eagle Feather
Woman). She left her reservation to work with the Indian Health
Service and has since traveled the U.S. exhibiting her beadwork,
acted as an advisor to numerous museums, and operated her own gallery
as well as a small non-profit entity in her home village.
Nico, whose Cheyenne
name is Esevoneme’ehne’e (Buffalo Appearing Woman),
has been involved with Native arts all her life - directing American
Indian art galleries, occasionally lecturing on the subject of Indian
art, serving on the advisory board of the First People’s Fund,
and working as an appraiser of Indian art and antiquities. She has
a fourteen-year-old son, Dah’som, who helps out at the shop too.
Under the family’s
guidance, Eagle Plume’s remains one of the most remarkable
emporiums of American Indian arts, crafts, and culture in the west.
We invite you take a look at what you'll see when you visit us.
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