Fringe on hunting shirts, and gun sleeves were there for a purpose- not merely decoration.
Long fringe was there to serve as short length of thong, that could be quickly cut off, then tied together to make a longer rope if needed.
On the shirts and sleeves, the long fringe served as both camouflage, breaking up the straight line of the edge of the sleeve. It also served to dry the sleeve or shirt quickly after rain, drawing the water off the case, where it will more quickly evaporate from the greater surface area of the fringe, catching wind.
Sadly much of the patterns you see and example you see made and sold of "hunting shirts" have short fringe that does nothing.I must assume that some trader got a big laugh selling such a shirt to some easterner with no experience actually living on the frontier. The shirt traded had been well worn, and all the fringe cut off for one reason or another.
That is the kind of thing that winds up in our modern museums.
I saw a kid's bow and arrow in the Museum of Natural History in Chicago, represented as being what was used to shoot buffalo by plains Indians. Problem was that it was in a Potawatomi Indian display, and that tribe lived in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin until the 1833 Trail of Tears moved the tribe to Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma territory. There had not been any buffalo in Illinois since the 1650s, when the French settlers killed off the herds making money shipping tongues, and livers down to New Orleans for shipping back to France.
I am sure that somewhere back East, fringe was shortened as a fashion statement, even back in the 18th century. But, that does not negate the fact that fringe was originally long, and had multiple purposes in Native American culture. And, those ways were adopted by European hunters, trappers, and traders who lived among the Indians for long periods of the year, adopting their ways, and their dress when their own "store bought" or hand made clothing simply wore out. :hmm: :hatsoff: