Red woolen cloth, blue silk with red, white, and green or blue thread. Beads consist of translucent glass beads and tubular orange, yellow-green and grey glass beads.

The crown is comprised of approximately ten pieces of red woolen cloth, and fourteen pieces of blue silk. All of the pieces appear to be stitched together. Given the unusual clover leaf form of the crown, internal ribbing may have been used to stiffen the four “leaves” that rise up from the headband and cap section. These leaves come together to form another, smaller voluminous form above the centre of the crown. The leaves are lined with blue silk and the headband is attached to a blue silk top piece, covering the head.

The motifs around the headband section of the crown and on the leaves could be attached using spot stitching with every second or third bead stitched to the cloth. Similar stitching techniques are found in Woodlands vegetal and floral forms, flattened motifs, abstract floral work and stylized, geometric floral combinations. Along the edges of the curving leaves, delicate strands of translucent beads dangle on loops of thread. Orange, yellow-green and grey tubular beads interrupt the strands of clear beads at regular intervals. The beadwork on the leaves themselves is quite dense and slightly raised.

The top of the headband has semicircular extensions in between the leaves. Starting with the figure of a man on a horse and working counter-clockwise, the beadwork along the headband also depicts a heart above two crossed swords, a man on foot carrying what appears to be a staff, a ladder form with the letters 'c', 'h', and 'f' depicted in between the rungs, a serpent coiled around a staff, a triangle, a feline, an eight-pointed star, a chicken, a candelabra with 12 candles, an anchor, a five-pointed star, two men on foot with an object supported between them using poles resting on their shoulders, and a flag flying from a short staff.

style of beadwork and period of Ontario Orange Lodge activity

Purchased by Wesley Mattie for the CMC from Blake McKendry Ltd. on September 26, Ltd. in Elginburg, Ontario.

Hold On To Your Hats! 1995 – 1997, Canadian History Galleries, Canadian Museum of Civilization;
Crossroads of Culture: 200 Years of Canadian Immigration (1800-2000), Online Exhibition, Canadian Museum of Civilization;
Layered with Meaning: Haudenosaunee Beadwork Traditions, 2004-2009, First Peoples Hall, Canadian Museum of Civilization

Information was made available from a 2005 presentation paper from Christina Bates, Curator of Ontario History, Canadian Museum of Civilization, and Judy Hall, Curator of Ethnology (Eastern Woodlands and Arctic), Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Created by Alisdair MacRae as part of a class research project. ARTH 5210, Master's program in Art History, Carleton University, autumn 2010. Supported by Judy Hall, Curator of Great Lakes Ethnology, Canadian Museum of Civilization. Edited by Ruth Phillips