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These bandolier bags were called "Friendship bags" or "Pony bags" and the Minnesota Ojibwa traveled every year to the Missouri River where they traded these bags to the Hidatsa and Sioux in return for horses. Crow and other western Indians carried these bags even further west to the horse-breeding Plateau Indians. This intertribal trade may explain the attachment of this bag to a type of shoulder strap that originated from somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains. The style of its beadwork has been identified as typical for Nez Perce and their neighbors, but similar beadwork shows up also on some octopus bags of the Inland Tlingit and Tahltan of northwestern British Columbia. The tabs on the shoulderpart of the strap is a feature spread in the Northwest by Cree Indians or their Metis relatives, many of whom followed the fur trade into the Columbia River region. (From the Catalog of the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, 2nd ed.)
ProvenanceSkinner's, Bolton, Massachusetts
BibliographySkinner's American Indian Art at Auction. January 9, 1993, Sale 1487, lot 345.
Vincent, Gilbert T. Masterpieces of American Indian Art. New York: Harry Abrams, 1995, p.19.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.72.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 79.
Culture
Anishinaabe (Ojibwa)
Bandolier Bag
Datec. 1860
DimensionsOverall: 9 1/4 × 44 in. (23.5 × 111.8 cm)
Object numberT0016
Credit LineGift of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw
Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor, NYC
Label TextAround 1850 fully beaded bandolier bags became fashionable among the Native people of Wisconsin and Minnesota, stimulating the development of an increasingly elaborate art form. The bag illustrated here is an early type from the northwestern margins of this region. (c.f. Gogol 1990, p.31, fig.16; British Columbia Provincial Museum, cat. no. 16173). The woven beadwork panel shows the basic "X" motif derived from earlier yarn-plaited bags, framed by silk ribbon applique that extends around the plain red upper part. Hair tassels in metal cones had long since given way to yarn tassels on beadwoven tabs.These bandolier bags were called "Friendship bags" or "Pony bags" and the Minnesota Ojibwa traveled every year to the Missouri River where they traded these bags to the Hidatsa and Sioux in return for horses. Crow and other western Indians carried these bags even further west to the horse-breeding Plateau Indians. This intertribal trade may explain the attachment of this bag to a type of shoulder strap that originated from somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains. The style of its beadwork has been identified as typical for Nez Perce and their neighbors, but similar beadwork shows up also on some octopus bags of the Inland Tlingit and Tahltan of northwestern British Columbia. The tabs on the shoulderpart of the strap is a feature spread in the Northwest by Cree Indians or their Metis relatives, many of whom followed the fur trade into the Columbia River region. (From the Catalog of the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, 2nd ed.)
ProvenanceSkinner's, Bolton, Massachusetts
BibliographySkinner's American Indian Art at Auction. January 9, 1993, Sale 1487, lot 345.
Vincent, Gilbert T. Masterpieces of American Indian Art. New York: Harry Abrams, 1995, p.19.
Vincent, Gilbert et al. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2000, p.72.
Fognell, Eva and Alexander Brier Marr, eds. Art of the North American Indians: The Thaw Collection at the Fenimore Art Museum, 2nd ed. Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum, 2016, p. 79.
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