The backdrop of this photograph is a large tipi liner that was used inside a tipi to provide privacy and to stop drafts. The two objects in the upper left are tipi ornaments, and the bag in the upper right holds medicines for rites connected with the art of tipi-making.

Cheyenne women earned the traditional rights to make Cheyenne tipis, and they are known as the Cheyenne tipi makers. Members of the Tipi Maker's Society carry their supplies in buffalo-hide and calico-cloth bags, which are often passed from generation to generation.

Josie Limpy, a Cheyenne woman, once owned a tipi-making bag that was handed down through her family for five generations.

In May 1925, at the age of sixty-nine, Mrs. Limpy prayed to Ma 'heo 'o (God) and said that he should have pity on her and her people. As they are now baptized, she did not have anyone to hand her medicine bag to, and she was going to sell it a Mennonite missionary. Mrs. Limpy believed that no harm would come from selling her tipi-making bag, yet she did it with ceremonial respect for the bag and its contents.

Today, the Tipi Maker's Society has dwindled significantly. Bertha Little Coyote, a highly respected elder and tipi maker who lived in the Seiling/Fonda community, passed away in the fall of 2003 at the age of ninety-three.

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