Materials

Pouch: Cotton print; hide fringe; Flap: moosehide; porcupine quill, metal cones; Strap: beads, green, black, yellow; vegetable fibre.

Techniques or Format

Pouch: made of cotton print, with the moosehide flap attached at a seam.

Beaded strap: attached with two triangular hide tabs. It looks like a wampum belt, similar construction. Vegetable fibre to make the beaded strap.

Hide flap: flap of the pouch has lines of oversewn quill in zigzag stitch. There are circles in oversewn stitch in each of four tabs.

Cones: Four pairs of cones hung from the four points of the tabs of the pouch.

Motifs and Patterns

The beaded strap is a background of green beads with a repeat pattern of a row of black square in a yellow square, on a diagonal, across the strap.

Other Notes

The circles on the tabs of the flap are like the circles on the moccasins at the MQB, 71.1878.32.138.

The motif of the square inside a square on the strap is seen on the moosehair woven band on the moccasins at the NMS, A.L.304.108.

The strap may not have been made to go with the pouch and may have been added later.

Dimensions: 114 × 4.5 × 0 cm

Condition: Fair. The pouch and strap are in good condition but fragile. There is almost complete loss of quill work on the flap.

Reasons for connecting this relative with particular times, materials, styles and uses

The material in the Bibliothèque Nationale du France was collected before 1792. Autumn Epple believes, based on style and materials, that the object dates between 1760 and 1790.

Current Location: Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris, France

Catalogue, Accession or Reference Number: 71.1878.32.142

Link to Institution's Collections Database: www.quaibranly.fr

Collection Narratives and Histories

The ethnographic works from the Bibliothèque Nationale du France are located in the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. These ethnographic works were brought together in this collection at the time of the French Revolution, around 1792. Many of these works came from the Jardin du Roi, the collection of the French kings. In 1792, inventories were made of the possessions of aristocratic French families in Paris and the provinces and many objects were selected to be added to the Bibliothèque Nationale, which was the national collection of the new Republic. Ethnographic material from the Bibliothèque Nationale was located at the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadéro, then the Musée de l’Homme, and is now in the Musée du quai Branly.

Related language items in the GKS: mshkimot

GKS Reference Number: 1411

How to Cite this Item

Unknown artist, bag. Currently in the Musée du quai Branly, 71.1878.32.142. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip; GRASAC item id 1411.

Record Creation Context

The research for this record was carried out by Anne deStecher during her PhD thesis studies.

Record Creation Notes/Observations

This record was created by Anne de Stecher during an RAship for Prof. Ruth Phillips.