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mokuk; birchbark container
mokuk; birchbark container
mokuk; birchbark container
Mokuk made of birchbark filled with maple sugar, with string on the top of the container. The top and sides are decorated with colourful motifs and images made of porcupine quills. One side shows four people with feather headdresses in two canoes. The other side shows what look like four people in two sugar camps with two kettles for boiling sap, with striped green and red designs on the clothing of the people. On the top, there are two diamond or rhombus shapes with rounder striped black and white shapes in between the two diamonds. This item was collected by Johann Georg Schwarz in the 1820s, it is currently housed at the Weltmuseum Wien, Austria.
Read More About This Relative
Birch bark, quills, string, spruce root.
Coloured quills wrapped in intervals along the top edge; band of spruce root on top.
Two sugar camps (?) with two kettles for boiling sap; verso, two canoes with 4 people in each with feather headdresses; striped designs in red and green in one.
Johann Georg Schwarz collected this item, possibly when he traveled to Detroit and through Upper Canada in the winter of 1820-1821.
Provenance
Johann Georg Schwarz traveled to Detroit and through Upper Canada in the winter of 1820-1821.
About This GRASAC Record
Unknown Indigenous artist, mokuk. Currently in the Weltmuseum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 011997. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip January 2016; GRASAC item id 59005.
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 November of 2021 by GRASAC RA Aidan Mitchell-Boudreau.