shoulder bag
shoulder bag
shoulder bag
Shoulder bag made from deer skin dyed dark brown, dyed porcupine quills, dyed red deer hair, and tin cones. Bag has thunderbird and fish motifs.
Read More About This Relative
Deer skin dyed dark brown, porcupine quills (red-orange; blue-green, white, orange-yellow), dyed red deer hair; tin cones; back of bag stripped cotton cloth (cloth resembles mattress ticking)
Two thunderbirds and a fish in the bottom; line of diamonds of diamonds or triangle shapes in the middle; above the bag front a line of v-shapes and shallow triangles terminating in loops (perhaps horns of underwater being); double zigzag line across the top; feather lines on the wings of the thunderbirds
CONSTRUCTION DETAILS:
two pieces;
front and back, strap is missing;
edging done with quills, alternating sections of red blue yellow and white in a double row (stitch?)
ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS:
unusual feature of the bag is the row of v-shapes and triangles on top; and the alternation of colours in the t-bird wings and edging; very economical use of hide -- mattress ticking used in places where it can't be seen
Provenance
About This GRASAC Record
Unknown Indigenous artist, shoulder bag. Currently in the Weltmuseum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 11969. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip January 2016; GRASAC item ID 45142.
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).