The jingle dress is a dance dress worn by women who are participating in the “Jingle Dress Dance” at a pow-wow. A jingle dress is made of cloth, often velvet, or leather and decorated with jingles made from shiny metal. Traditionally, and still today, lids from snuff cans are used to make the jingles. The lids are bent and crimped into cones and attached to a dress with ribbon or fabric. Generally, an adult jingle dress incorporates between 400 and 700 jingles. This dress is sewn with 539 jingles.

     The jingle dress and its associated dance originated among Ojibwe communities around 1900. While different communities each tell differing stories, all accounts of the origin of the jingle dress agree that it was first seen as part of the vision of a Midewinini, or medicine man, and that it was associated with the healing of a young woman. In the Mille Lacs’ version, the dream occurred to a Midewinini because his daughter was gravely ill. The Midewinini dreamed that four women appeared, each wearing a jingle dress and dancing. In his dream, the Midewinini received directions for making the dresses, for songs that should be played while wearing them, and for the way that the dance should be performed. Upon awakening, the Midewinini recognized the four women who had appeared to him in his dream.