Brooklyn Museum Collection

Henry L. Batterman Fund and the Frank Sherman Benson Fund

Brooklyn Museum Collection

The slightly curved steel blade of the knife is bound to the well-round bone (?) handle by a worked sheet of brass. This brass is finished in a series of little points at the handle end and incised with series of simple lines, both parallel and diagonal, to form bands. The sheath for this knife is worked with porcupine quills in purplish brown, orange, yellow, and natural white in a motif of connecting diamonds. The body of the sheath has an orange triangle with "V" shaped outlines at the very bottom, below the pattern of connected diamonds. The panel or cuff is striped. Many metal cones are suspended from the bottom of the cuff and one single cone, or tinkler is suspended from the bottom tip of the sheath. These 'tin-tinklers' on the panel were once quill-wrapped.The leather is thread sewn so that beige ribbon adorns the panel or cuff.

This is a flat, wooden pipe stem, painted blue-green at the bowl end. The end nearer the mouth piece is decorated with a combination of colored lines which are narrow strips of braided quillwork wrapped around to encircle the flat stem. These strips are carefully planned to create a striped design from the combination of narrow bands as they are stacked or lined up one after the other. The design is red, white, blue, and black on one side and different on the reverse, consisting largely of black triangles tipped with short horizontal bands and offset by long horizontal bands. The bands are colored blackish-purple, orange and white. A hide strap is covered with long white bird quill wrapped fringes. Red horsehair is tied on at both ends of the quillwork and bird scalps are also attached.

Brooklyn Museum Collection

Osage name by curator Stewart Culin may not be accurate. Fan is made from the tail feathers of a winter hawk. Large hawks have 12 feathers; small hawks have 10 feathers in tail. According to Sean Standing Bear 10/20/2000 this fan is missing its center feather. The handle is woven with dyed porcupine quillwork with a row of blue and white beads along each edge.

This dress is composed of four sections of very white and pliable skin, probably employing at least two deer or caribou hides. Two large pieces of skin were sewn together to form the front and back of the dress and the upper edge of the skin is turned down as a long graceful flap to the waist. Two smaller pieces of skin are added to serve as shoulder straps. The entire dress, including the quillwork, is sewn together with thread. The seams that join the two major sections are fringed. Fringe near the shoulder is clipped very short so that it appears "pinked" and the fringe at the bottom of the dress is wrapped with orange and blue porcupine quills. The decoration of the shoulder straps is somewhat unusual as it differs from front to back. Scallops terminate the straps on the dress' front' while fringes decorate the shorter ends of the straps at the back. The straps are also decorated with a row of tiny black beads that edge the sides of these straps and surround the three scalloped lobes on each. Pairs of black beads in a double row decorate the section of the strap that intersects with the low neck line. Each scalloped portion of the straps is also ornamented, right and left, with bows made of hide strips wrapped at intervals with orange and light blue quills. Similar string-like ornaments are also attached at the proper right side of the front flap and the proper left side on the black flap. Quillwork strips across the body of the dress are in green, black, brown, white, reddish orange and light blue. Black seed beads and blue pony beads are applied as a scalloped border on an added piece of skin near the hem of the dress and tin cones are suspended in pairs from the apex of each of these beaded curves by thin hide strands wrapped at intervals with orange quills. See Jarvis report in Arts of Americas files.

Charles Stewart Smith Memorial Fund

Circular pouch possibly used to carry peyote, a dome-shaped cactus that is used as a narcotic. Or it may have been a pouch to hold other special object. Possibly it was originally a tipi ornament that was converted to a bag. The front is decorated with 9 alternating white and red circular bands that are bisected by 8 black stripes (resembling spokes of a wheel) of porcupine quillwork. The back is of commercial leather with a scroll, punctate design and beaded cross-shaped decorations in blue, yellow and red. Encircling pouch is a fringe of 13 red, white, and black quill-wrapped leather strips and carved deer hooves. Condition is good.