pipe bag, unrecorded Hinono’eino artist

Exhibition Label: "Roots and Journeys: Encountering Global Arts and Cultures," Jun-2013, Cassandra Mesick Variously embellished with porcupine quills, glass beads, and pigment, these bags illustrate abstract Native American art from the Great Plains produced during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Artists wove fragile hand-dyed porcupine quills into bold patterns, exemplified by the simple but striking central panel on this Arapaho pipe bag. After European traders inundated local markets with new goods, quills were gradually-but never wholly-supplanted by glass beads, which were incorporated onto shoes, clothing, and accessories like this dispatch bag. Leather, buckskin, and rawhide also provided a medium for painting. Women used saturated pigments to design bold rectilinear geometric patterns akin to the diamond and triangular forms seen on this parfleche, or carrying envelope. Exhibition Label: "Passages: Persistent Visions of a Native Place," Sep-2011, Nancy Mahaney Arapaho pipe bags, made to hold the sacred pipes used in ceremonies, were decorated with twisted hide fringe on the bottom and registers or panels with beadwork and porcupine quillwork reflecting the Arapaho nation or different clans within the tribe. Each bag is unique. Arapaho designs of this period typically included Maltese or square crosses such as those on this bag, signifying star constellations, hexagons, triangles, and small solid squares. The Arapaho also continued to use quillwork long after other tribes had started to use beads. Historically, ceremonial pipe smoking was part of most important events. The ritualized act of smoking the pipe together was intended to serve as an acknowledgement of the shared agreement.