Steel; wood; porcupine quills, natural and dyed orange and brown; wool; skin, smoked; animal hair, dyed orange; metal cones; blue ribbon or tape.

The knife is composed of a steel blade with a smoked skin covered wooden handle, decorated with porcupine quillwork done in natural and dyed orange and brown quills, sewn with wool. The handle's butt is decorated with wrapped quillwork and has a short single thong at the end, partially wrapped in quills and split at the end.

The sheath is made from two pieces of smoked skin and sewn together up the sides with split quills, in alternating sections of brown, orange and white. At the opening, the front top is bent over into a short rectangular flap. The sheath itself is decorated with the folded or zig zag and spiral sewn-down technique.

The sheath's front is decorated with three lines of zig zag quillwork, running down the sheath in blocks of white, orange and brown. The empty space between the edges of the sheath and the three lines running down the central axis is filled with two meandering lines of white quills sewn spirally onto a thread base of running stitches. At the opening, on either side, are attached skin thongs, wrapped in white and orange quills, ending in dyed orange animal hair filled metal cones. A single similar thong survives at the tip of the sheath. The top of the sheath's back is bi-lobed, and edged with the same quilled stitching as the rest of the sheath. The remains of a strap are attached to the back.

British Museum accession record.

Previously owned by the American painter Benjamin West, who kept it in his studio. It was donated to the British Museum by Morton I and Mrs. Estelle Sosland in 1991.

British Museum, North American Gallery: first peoples, first contact, 1999

JCH King, 'First Peoples, First Contacts' (British Museum Press, 1999) p.39 and 69.

Unknown artist, knife and sheath. Currently in the British Museum, Am1991,12.1.a-b. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip December 2007; GRASAC item id 26982.

This record was created as part of a Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) research trip to the Pitt Rivers Museum and British Museum, December 8-22 2007, funded by a grant from the International Opportunities fund of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Researchers present: Heidi Bohaker (HB), John Borrows (JB), Lindsay Borrows (LB), Darlene Johnston (DJ), Jonathan King (JK), Stacey Loyer (SL), Janis Monture (JM), Bruce Morito (BM), Ruth Phillips (RP), Cory Willmott (CW).