The cuff is made of dark brown cloth trimmed with blue silk and tiny white beads. On the vamp, a twig is embroidered in green and red-dyed porcupine quills, with blue quillwork trim and very fine white quillwork edging on either side and around the twigs.

The cuffs are made of dark blue wool broadcloth with calico print (blue print, reserve print in Slovenia) on inner flaps, cotton lining; blue silk edge; and additional white beaded edge (larger beads, old). The dark staining of the hide is typical of Huron Wendat (east of Great Lakes); dye from oak gall (from tree knots).

The cuffs show the decorative motifs of a twig with buds and six-point stars on the back made of smaller white beads on outline, and small dashes of blue, red, and white inside. The beaded flowers are rosehip-shaped with undyed outline stitches inside.

EXCERPT from France Golob’s "Misijonarji: Darovalci Indijanskih Predmetov (Missionaries: Donors of Native American Objects, Collection of the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum)," pp. 266-69:

The word "moccasin" is derived from the Algonquian language. There are two types of moccasins: those worn by the Plains Native Americans who sewed a piece of stiff untanned leather to the moccasin as sole and the moccasins of the woodland tribes that had no soles. Moccasins are skin shoes used by all Native Americans except for the tribes living along the Mexican border and the Pacific Ocean who wore sandals.

Moccasins were made by women from deer, buck, and moose hides. They tanned the hides themselves, a very time-consuming job. First, they scraped the pieces of flesh off the skin with a narrow chisel made of bone, the shinbone of a deer or moose. Such bone fleshers were about 15 cm long. Today, the flesh is scraped off with a serrated iron blade. After the hide was cleaned of adhering flesh, it was soaked to remove any remaining attached pieces of flesh and hair. The hide was left in water for three days and then wrung out. Then the hide was hung obliquely over an inclined log of wood or "horse" for shaving. This "horse" consisted of a body and two legs. In earlier times, the hide was shaved with a coarse stone, later with a metal scraper. After the shaving, the hide was stretched in a frame and softened with a bone scraper (today, metal scrapers are used). After this job was finished, any cuts were sewn together, and the skin was dyed. The last phase of preparation was smoking. Before smoking, the skin was sewn together with basswood or other fibers and then placed over a small fire. Smoking gave the skin its characteristic smell.

To make moccasins, they chose a deer hide large enough to make nine moccasins. In the early days, moccasins were sewn with thread made of cedar bark or with sinew taken from the large back tendon of a deer or buck. These native threads were used until they were replaced by European products.

A moccasin consists of a heel, a heel seam, a cuff, an instep seam, and a vamp. They were made by first tanning the leather and then sewing it. In recent times, velvet was also used in the making of moccasins to bind them to the cuffs. Cuffs from old moccasins were often taken off and used in making new ones.

Children's moccasins were sometimes decorated with delicate ornaments worked with a needle and yarn. In winter, children's moccasins were stuffed with the soft hair from a cat's tail to make them warmer.

Moccasins were decorated with porcupine quills, glass beads, cloth, buttons, fur, and fringes. The decoration varied depending on the tribe to which the Native Americans belonged.

The decoration of moccasins with porcupine quills is called "quillwork." In the plains where this technique of decoration was highly developed, there were no porcupines. The Native Americans probably obtained quills by trading or through hunting parties. The quills of a porcupine are about 8 cm long, the bristles about 5 cm. The Native Americans of the northern plains preferred to use the larger quills, while those from the northern central plains and eastern forests preferred the smaller bristles.

The preparation of quills was exclusively women's work. To dye them, they used a great variety of plant and mineral substances. The most popular colours were red, yellow, black, and the natural yellowish-white colour of the bristles. To obtain a more intense colour while dying, a tiny piece was cut off the bottom end of every quill. In this way, the dye could flow into the hollow quill and dye it from the inside as well.

The preparation of quills was exclusively women's work. To dye them they used a great variety of plant and mineral substances. The most popular colours were red, yellow, black, and the natural yellowish-white colour of the bristles. To obtain a more intense colour while dying, a tiny piece was cut off the bottom end of every quill. In this way the dye could flow into the hollow quill and dye it from the inside as well.

The import of woolen cloth from Europe led to the procedure of dying quills by boiling them together with cloth of various colours. In the second half of the 19th century, Native Americans began to use aniline dyes, thus enriching the colour range. Quills were sorted according to size and stored in vessels. The women flattened the quills with their teeth or fingernails or used a special device made of wood or bone.

There are four basic techniques of quillwork and many sub-techniques. The basic techniques are twisting, twining, stitching, and weaving, and from these four, a variety of sub-techniques developed: twisting and twining around one thread or two threads into triangular or rhomboid patterns. Weaving is divided into weaving with beads and the technique of screen weaving. The most complex technique is that of weaving. Only a small number of tribes engaged in it became truly skillful, among them the Cree and Ojibwa.

By the end of the 18th century, glass beads of European origin had begun to replace quillwork in the area of the eastern woodland territories. In the 19th century, Native American tribes in the area of the prairies and plains also obtained glass beads in larger quantities. Since beadwork is much easier, the technique of quillwork became gradually extinct.

In the 1960s, Native Americans from the plains showed renewed interest in their traditional culture, including the revival of quillwork, because they could earn money from the production and sale of souvenirs. Especially among the Western Sioux, there are families who specialize in the production of traditional quillwork. Besides quillwork, Native Americans also make ornaments and jewellery for the tourists.

In addition to quillwork, Native Americans decorated their clothing, shoes, and other belongings for everyday use with beads. In the times before the white settlers, Native Americans made beads from the shells of river and sea snails. They were sewn to dresses or strung into necklaces or belts. Most famous are the wampum belts worn by the Iroquois and northeastern Algonquins. Wampum beads were of cylindrical shape and were also used as means of payment.

The first glass beads were brought to the New World by Christopher Columbus himself and became the most popular commodity for exchange. As the supply of glass beads in the 18th and early 19th century could not meet their demand, Native Americans began to decorate their clothing with combinations of beads and quills. Large quantities of glass beads arrived in the Upper Missouri region after 1850 in the footsteps of the fur trade. The glass beads of this area were 3 to 4 mm in size and were called "pony" beads. They probably got their name from the fact that the trappers carried them in bags on the backs of ponies. From 1840 onwards, they were gradually replaced by so-called "seed" beads with a diameter of 1 to 3 mm. The name "seed" beads probably derived from their being hardly bigger than the seeds some tribes used to make ornaments. Later, Native Americans also used medium-large and faceted beads. There are three techniques of beadwork: bead weaving, overlay, and stitch, the latter known by the Crow.

Beadwork was done on a simple loom. Beadwork (sewing beads to a background of leather, cloth, or bark) was certainly the most widespread technique because it was the simplest and most durable. The overlay technique had two variations: the "overlay" and "lazy stitch." The overlay technique consists of stringing a number of glass beads on a thread and then fastening it to the background with another thread by sewing across it at regular intervals. This technique was used to make floral ornaments and was widespread among the tribes of the northeastern forest region, including the Ojibwa, who developed precisely floral designs to a very high level. The lazy stitch technique was characteristic of Native Americans from the prairies and plains. This technique consists of sewing parallel rows of ten to fifty beads to the background. The individual rows acquired the characteristic form of an arch or curve. This technique is typical of the geometric designs of Plains tribes. Because one of the variations of this technique was used by the Crow, it is also called the "Crow stitch.”

If we ignore the pendants, earrings, belt clasps, hair ornaments, and other objects that are nowadays made as souvenirs and sold to tourists, the art of beadwork is limited among the Plains Native Americans to the clothing and objects they make for their own use. Though the technique was introduced by white people, no other artistic technique is as intimately connected with the concept of Native American art as beadwork.

Museum documentation attributes the collection of this relative to missionary Franc Pirc while he was in the Great Lakes region, specifying it to the second half of the 19th century.

THE PIRC DONATION: History of its origin and outline

Excerpt from "Misijonarji: Darovalci Indijanskih Predmetov (Missionaries: Donors of Native American Objects, Collection of the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum),” France Golob; p. 237-39.

In a letter Friderik Baraga wrote to his sister on December 3, 1836, he informs her that a crate has been shipped to Trieste in which there are Native American objects, and he asks that her husband have it sent to him as soon as he receives word of its arrival. This crate also contained an ancient Native American stone axe donated to the Carniolan Provincial Museum by missionary Franc Pirc. It is likely that Baraga had told Pirc that he was looking for Native American objects for the museum and that Pirc gave him the axe.

The stone axe is first mentioned in the handwritten list covering the ethnographic objects of the Baraga Collection. The list comprises three sheets, sized 240 x 228 mm, and is written in Gothic cursive script in the German language. The text under number 238/214 at the end of the list reads: "(Donated) by Father Franc Pirc (Franz Pirz), missionary in Sault Ste. Marie at Lake Superior and Lake Michigan: one ancient stone axe (WAGAKWAT) made of green sandstone, 12" excavated in Arbre Croche. The next list, written by curator Heinrich Freyer on April 14, 1837, is based on Urban Jerin's list. The entry under number 238/214 at the end of the list reads that missionary Father Pirc from North America donated one stone axe (WAGAKWAD) made of green sandstone.

In 1836, Illyrisches Blatt published a notice (no. 214) stating that Father Franc Pirc, a missionary born in Kamnik (correct: in Godič near Kamnik), had donated an ancient stone axe.

In early 1838, the museum's annual report for the year 1836-1837 was published. The report mentions that countryman Father Franc Pirc, missionary, had donated an ancient stone axe from the savages on Lake Superior.

Illyrisches Blatt of 1884 concludes a description of African objects from the Lavrin Collection by mentioning that the first exhibition of the Baraga and Lavrin Collections had been held. Among the donors, Franc Pirc is also mentioned.

In the Guide to the Carniolan Provincial Museum published by the museum's curator and conservator Karl Deschmann, Franc Pirc is also mentioned. The entry under number 23 reads "ancient stone axe from the Indians of Lake Superior," and a new object is mentioned here for the first time, a spearhead made of flint. The stone axe donated by Franc Pirc (on the groove of the handle a piece of paper is attached and the surname of the donor Pir(z) is visibly written in brown ink) was not entered in the National Museum's Inventory Volume I, 1895-1914 nor in the Ethnographic Museum's Inventory, Volume II, 1923-1928.

Without reference to a donation or to their origin, other Native American objects in the Slovene Ethnographic Museum—that is, in its Section for Non-European Cultures are also attributed to missionary Franc Pirc.

Besides the bag with a handle (cat. no. 21), the following objects were also attributed to Pirc: women's moccasin (cat. no. 29), men's embroidered moccasins (cat. no. 36), girl's (women's) moccasin (cat. no. 37), and a round woven basket with lid (the object is missing).

Since there are no written sources on Franc Pirc's donation of these Native American objects, he can only have been their indirect donor. It is my [author’s] belief that the Native American objects mentioned were first given to acquaintances and benefactors by Pirc and were later donated to the Provincial Museum.

"Misijonarji: Darovalci Indijanskih Predmetov (Missionaries: Donors of Native American Objects, Collection of the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum)," France Golob. Ljubljana: Library of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, 1997.

"Misijonarji: Darovalci Indijanskih Predmetov (Missionaries: Donors of Native American Objects, Collection of the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum)," France Golob. Ljubljana: Library of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, 1997.

Maker, Name unrecorded. Moccasins, beaded and quillwork. GRASAC ID 59200. Slovene Ethnographic Museum, E 1030.

This record was created as part of a Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) research trip GRASAC visit to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum (Ljubljana, Slovenia), December 3-5, 2024.

Researchers present: Maureen Matthews, Cary Miller, Pamela Klassen, and Amanda McLeod.

This record was created by Amanda McLeod, 05/14/25.