{{Short description|Native American and pioneer jacket}}
A '''wamus''' is a type of jacket worn in the United States. The term is applied to several different types of upper-body garment.
==Early American history== One of the more consistent uses of wamus is to describe a fringed leather tunic that slips over the head.<ref name=wilcox>{{cite book |last1=Wilcox |first1=R. Turner|title=Five centuries of American costume |date=2004 |publisher=Dover Publications|location=Mineola, N.Y.|isbn=9780486436104|pages=[https://archive.org/details/fivecenturiesofa00rtur/page/42 42]–43|edition=Dover |url=https://archive.org/details/fivecenturiesofa00rtur|url-access=registration }}</ref><ref name=lakota>{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=James R. |editor1-last=DeMallie|editor1-first=Raymond J.|title=Lakota society|date=1992|publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rdY_ts9qQZEC&pg=PA102 |page=102 |isbn=9780803297371|edition=1. Bison Book printing}}</ref> For early American pioneer families in the Southern United States, the buckskin (later, cloth) wamus was widely worn by young and pre-teen boys in the late 18th and very early 19th century.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dick|first1=Everett|title=The Dixie frontier : a social history of the Southern frontier from the first transmontane beginnings to the Civil War |date=1993 |publisher=Univ. of Oklahoma Press|location=Norman [u.a.]|isbn=9780806123851|edition=[Repr. der Ausg.] New York, 1948. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EO2NSlmdOpsC&pg=PA297}}</ref> The wamus, if it opened down the front, was either laced shut or held closed with a belt, with dressier versions made from elk skin.<ref name=wilcox/> If made from cloth, the wamus was dyed blue and trimmed with yellow fringe.<ref name=wilcox/>
As worn by the Lakota people, the wamus was a ceremonial tunic which was coloured to represent the type of person the wearer was, as well as painted with mnemonic designs.<ref name=lakota/> Traditionally, if a warrior had scalped his enemy, he was allowed to trim his wamus with human hair cut from the heads of mourning women in addition to the cut fringe.<ref name=lakota/>
==Later history== The wamus eventually came to describe a sleeved jacket or cardigan, typically with buttoned wristbands and a belt-like waistband, in which format, it was also sometimes called a '''roundabout'''.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Picken|first1=Mary Brooks|title=A dictionary of costume and fashion : historic and modern |date=1999 |isbn=9780486141602 |pages=188–189|publisher=Courier Corporation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CbOI4TCcnbQC&pg=PA188}}</ref><ref name=krohn>{{cite book|last1=Krohn|first1=Katherine|title=Calico dresses and buffalo robes : American West fashions from the 1840s to the 1890s |date=2012 |publisher=Twenty-first Century Books |location=Minneapolis |isbn=9780761358909 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P1V7a1Syc_EC&pg=PA25}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|journal=The American Tailor and Cutter|date=1902|volume=23|page=125|title=Roundabout|publisher=Jno. J. Mitchell Company|quote=Roundabout — A name for a certain kind of jacket. (See Wamus.)}}</ref>
For Sunday best and other special occasions Amish men wear a jacket called a wamus, distinct from the 'mutze' traditionally worn for preaching.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schwieder |first1=Elmer |last2=Schwieder |first2=Dorothy |title=A peculiar people Iowa's old order Amish : an expanded edition |date=2009|publisher=University of Iowa Press |location=Iowa City |isbn=9781587298486|edition=1st University of Iowa Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0mxkfR0kMhcC&pg=PA25}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hostetler|first1=John A.|authorlink1=John A. Hostetler|editor1-last=Weaver-Zercher |editor1-first=David |title=Writing the Amish : the worlds of John A. Hostetler |date=2005 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |location=University Park, Pa. |isbn=9780271026862 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ElMlN3yhxw8C&pg=PA205|chapter=The Amish use of symbols (1964)}}</ref>
==See also== * Zouave jacket
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Jackets Category:19th-century fashion Category:20th-century fashion Category:American clothing Category:Native American clothing