Composite ornament, with a concave shell gorget and a long back ornament made of quillwork panels. Attached to the shell gorget are skin thongs with loomwoven blue and white glass wampum beads on vegetable fibre wefts. These strips are about 70 beads long and three beads wide. The two straps are tied onto a thin metal strip from which is suspended a rectangular piece of red stroud with a panel of netted quillwork done in black, white, orange and blue dyed quills. The panel is edged in a red silk ribbon and a single line of white and blue wampum beads, sewn together with vegetable fibre. Below the panel is a single row of metal cones containing red dyed deer hair, followed by strings of wrapped quillwork. The strings are attached to another metal strip, followed by another panel, a row of metal cones with deer hair and a row of long quill-wrapped strings terminating in metal cones with deer hair. There are 32 warp rows at the bottom and 30 between the panels.

An item of high virtuosity, this ornament has a rich mix of techniques including wrapped and woven quillwork and beading. On the lower quillwork panel there is a dark red element, which is completely out of sync with the rest of the pattern.

There are black dots around the lip of the shell gorget. The netted panels of quillwork are decorated with two stylized thunderbirds. Above each bird is a double zig zag pattern.

There are references to the four directions references in the four sided diamonds and four thunderbirds. Using counting as a means of reading the item, the three pairs of parallel horizonal lines on each shoulder strap coupled with the gorget equals the number seven. DJ wondered if dark the red element on second panel is either an artist's signature. SL suggested that in Metis tradition, a deliberate error is introduced as a mark of the artist's humility before the creator.

Exquisitely beautiful.

RP estimate 1700 to 1820 based upon materials, techniques and the of British officers in the region.

Part of the Christy Collection, in 1893 it was donated to the British Museum by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks and collected by Pickering and Captain Harding. , British Museum object catalogue. ,

JCH King, "Thunderbird and Lightning" BMP, 1982.

Unknown Odawa artist, ornament, back with gorget. Currently in the British Museum, Am,+.6992. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip December 2007; GRASAC item id 27014.

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), Alan Corbiere (AC), Henrietta Lidchi (HL), Stacey Loyer (SL), Janis Monture (JM), Bruce Morito (BM), Ruth Phillips (RP), Anne De Stecher (AS), Cory Willmott (CW).