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beaver bag
beaver bag
beaver bag
Beaver bag made with whole beaver skin, silk, and glass beads. Cloth panels that cover tail and paws have diamonds enclosing equal armed crosses, and in between the diamonds are spiral elements and concentric circles. This item is culturally sensitive and sharing photos is not appropriate. If photos are required, please contact Heidi Bohaker or Cara Krmpotich.
This material is traditionally and usually not publicly available because it contains important secret or sacred components.
Read More About This Relative
Made with whole beaver skin. Paws are covered in cloth with silk on top. Silk ribbon edging, glass beads and silk ribbons around the edge. Tail is covered in a tab as well.
Whole skin with a centre seam down the middle.
Cloth panels that cover tail and paws have diamonds enclosing equal armed crosses. In between the diamonds are spiral elements and concentric circles.
Martin Pitzer wrote that this item was used to protect arrows "from moisture, and as riding totes; when used as riding totes they are often decorated" (9).
Martin Pitzer collected this item, possibly when he travelled to the Great Lakes in the 1850s. In 1854 Pitzer published an exhibit catalogue with the items he collected at Arbre Croche and Cross Village.
Provenance
Austrian church painter Martin Pitzer travelled to the Great Lakes region, to "the Ottawa villages of Arbre Croche and Cross Village" in the early 1850s. He collected a significant number of item and brought them back to Austria to be part of an exhibition to raise money for the mission.
Pitzer, Martin. "Index of Objects and Woks of an American Indian Tribe in the Far North, Together With a Description of the Same." Printed by the J. G. Weiss University Press Printing Office. Munich. 1854.
Martin Pitzer collected items during his trip to Arbre Croche and Cross Village in the 1850s and displayed them in a travelling exhibition upon his return to Austria. The Pitzer collection later went to the Weltmuseum Wien, Austria.
In 1854 Pitzer published an accompanying catalogue for the show with additional information on each item.
Pitzer, Martin. "Index of Objects and Woks of an American Indian Tribe in the Far North, Together With a Description of the Same." Printed by the J. G. Weiss University Press Printing Office. Munich. 1854.
About This GRASAC Record
Unknown Odawa artist, beaver bag. Currently in the Weltmuseum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 131734. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip January 2016; GRASAC item id 59089.
In January of 2016, a small team of GRASAC researchers visited the collection to study and photograph it: Ruth Phillips, Lisa Truong, Naomi Recollet (Anishinaabe (Odawa/Ojibwe), Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory) and Wahsontiio Cross (Mohawk, Kahnawake). This GKS record was created in January 2022 by GRASAC RA Amelia Healey.
Created using a spreadsheet with information made by Ruth Phillips, Lisa Truong, Naomi Recollet (Anishinaabe (Odawa/Ojibwe), Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory) and Wahsontiio Cross (Mohawk, Kahnawake).