Parfleche
A parfleche is a durable, folded rawhide container traditionally manufactured by women of Plains Indian tribes from the tanned but unsoftened hide of buffalo or other large animals, forming an envelope-shaped bag secured with sinew thongs.[1][2] These containers were prized for their toughness, resistance to water penetration, and capacity to safeguard contents during transport on foot or horseback across the Great Plains.[3][4] The production process begins with fleshing a fresh hide pegged taut to the ground, followed by painting bold geometric patterns using mineral pigments on the interior surface before folding and stitching the edges to create a watertight seal.[5][1] Parfleches typically served as portable storage for dried meats, pemmican, berries, tools, clothing, and other essentials, with larger variants functioning as saddlebags or travois covers adapted to the nomadic lifestyle enabled by horse acquisition in the 17th and 18th centuries.[3][6] Their use peaked from the mid-1600s to mid-1800s among tribes such as the Lakota, Blackfoot, and Shoshone, though the form was later adopted by neighboring Plateau and Great Basin groups for its practicality in arid environments.[6][7] While traditional parfleches declined with industrialization and synthetic alternatives, examples persist in museum collections, illustrating indigenous ingenuity in material adaptation and artistic expression.[8][2]Etymology
Linguistic Origins
The term parfleche derives from Canadian French, combining parer ("to parry" or "ward off") and flèche ("arrow"), reflecting the rawhide material's reputed ability to resist or deflect arrows when used for shields or protective items.[9][10] This nomenclature emerged among French fur traders and voyageurs interacting with Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains during the early 19th century, who observed and adopted the durable rawhide containers and other artifacts crafted by tribes such as the Blackfoot, Sioux, and Cheyenne.[11][12] The word's first documented English usage appears in 1823, in the expedition account of Edwin James, a botanist with the Stephen Harriman Long expedition, describing Plains Indigenous rawhide goods encountered along the Missouri River.[11] Prior to European contact, Plains tribes lacked a direct linguistic equivalent in their own languages—such as Lakota pȟehíŋ or similar terms for rawhide—but referred to the items descriptively based on function or material, with no evidence of the French compound influencing pre-contact nomenclature.[13] The term's adoption into English via trade jargon underscores its non-Indigenous origin, distinct from Native terminologies that emphasized practical attributes like portability or storage rather than defensive qualities.[4]Historical Development
Pre-Contact Origins Among Plains Tribes
Parfleche containers emerged among the pedestrian nomadic societies of the Great Plains, including tribes such as the Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, and Blackfeet, who relied on communal bison hunts for sustenance and materials in the centuries before European contact around 1540. These tribes inhabited the vast grasslands from the Mississippi River westward to the Rockies, adapting rawhide technologies to the demands of seasonal migrations and limited transport via dog travois, which hauled loads averaging 30-50 pounds per dog. Rawhide, derived from bison hides abundant in kills yielding up to 1,000 pounds of usable material per animal, provided a lightweight, waterproof alternative to less durable basketry or pottery, enabling compact storage of essentials like dried meat, tools, and clothing during treks covering 20-30 miles daily in pursuit of herds.[1][14] Women, responsible for processing hides in these matrilineal task divisions, developed the parfleche through labor-intensive methods suited to pre-contact resource constraints: fleshing the hide to remove flesh and hair, soaking it in water or brain solution for 2-3 days to soften, pegging it taut on a frame to dry into a stiff sheet, and then folding and piercing it with bone awls for sinew lacing into envelope or box shapes measuring typically 18-24 inches long. This construction yielded rigid, weather-resistant vessels capable of holding 10-20 pounds of pemmican—a preserved mixture of pounded bison meat, fat, and berries sealed against spoilage for up to a year—crucial for surviving lean winters when herds migrated south. Ethnographic accounts from 19th-century observers, corroborated by oral traditions, describe these as integral to tipis housing 10-20 people, where parfleches hung from lodgepoles or tripods to organize possessions amid frequent relocations.[15][16] The absence of preserved specimens in archaeological sites, such as those from the Woodland or Archaic periods (circa 1000 BCE-1000 CE), stems from rawhide's rapid decomposition in Plains soils, though indirect evidence from bison bone concentrations at kill sites like Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (used from 6000 BCE) implies ancillary rawhide processing for transport and storage. Geometric paintings using ochre, charcoal, or plant dyes—often in red, yellow, and black patterns symbolizing protection or clan motifs—predated trade beads or commercial pigments, reflecting women's abstract artistic traditions tied to daily utility rather than narrative storytelling. This pre-horse adaptation underscored causal necessities of the ecosystem: bison provided 90% of material needs, fostering innovations like parfleche that maximized mobility without metal tools or wheels, distinguishing Plains cultures from more sedentary Woodland groups using bark or clay alternatives.[17][18]Adaptations and Changes Post-Contact
The introduction of horses to Plains tribes, beginning with southern groups like the Comanche in the mid-17th century and spreading northward by the early 18th century, transformed parfleche from primarily pedestrian storage into equestrian accessories. Tribes such as the Lakota and Blackfeet repurposed envelope-style parfleche as saddlebags, securing them to horse flanks for transporting pemmican, tools, and personal items during extended bison hunts.[19][20] This adaptation leveraged the rawhide's waterproof and durable qualities to withstand trail abrasion and weather exposure.[2] Specialized forms emerged to fit horse anatomy, including paired cases that draped over the animal's back with one compartment per side, often lashed via rawhide thongs to prevent shifting during gallops. Parfleche also attached to travois poles dragged behind horses or dogs, enabling efficient hauling of camp goods over vast distances in the nomadic horse culture that dominated Plains life by 1800.[8] These changes aligned with heightened mobility, as tribes covered hundreds of miles annually in pursuit of herds, rendering bulky alternatives impractical.[21] Post-contact trade with European fur traders and settlers introduced the term "parfleche," a French Canadian phrase denoting the rawhide's arrow-deflecting toughness, which entered tribal lexicons by the early 19th century.[22] While core construction—rawhide folding and mineral pigment painting—persisted, opportunistic use of traded metal awls sped lacing processes, and cow or horse hides supplemented buffalo after overhunting reduced bison numbers following the 1860s railroad expansions.[23] By the late 19th century reservation era, worn parfleche were recycled into patches or smaller items, reflecting resource scarcity amid cultural disruptions.[22]Materials and Construction
Rawhide Preparation
Rawhide for parfleche was derived primarily from bison hides, with preferred sections from the shoulders or hindquarters of mature female animals to ensure sufficient thickness for durability.[24][15] Preparation began promptly after skinning to prevent spoilage, involving fleshing to remove meat, fat, and inner membranes using tools such as antler or bone scrapers.[25] Dehairing followed, typically by soaking the hide in a lye solution derived from hardwood ashes and water to loosen the hair and outer epidermis, which was then scraped away with a dull-edged tool to yield a clean, uniform surface.[26][25] The cleaned hide was next stretched taut on a wooden frame or staked to the ground to prevent shrinkage or warping during drying.[1] Exposure to direct sunlight for several days to weeks hardened the material into a stiff, waterproof sheet when dry, though it softened temporarily upon wetting for shaping.[24][1] This labor-intensive process, often performed by women in Plains tribes, could span up to one month, accounting for soaking, scraping, and controlled drying to achieve the rigid quality essential for parfleche construction.[27] While bison hide predominated pre-contact, post-contact adaptations occasionally incorporated elk or domestic cattle hides using similar methods.[15] The resulting rawhide resisted cracking under load and maintained structural integrity for storage and transport.[24]Folding and Shaping Techniques
Parfleche folding begins after the rawhide has been soaked, stretched, and pounded to break down the collagen fibers, rendering it sufficiently flexible for creasing without cracking once dried.[15] This pounding process, typically performed with a smooth stone or mallet while the hide is still moist, ensures the material can be manipulated into durable shapes that harden rigidly upon full drying.[1] For the common envelope-style bag, the prepared rectangular or oval rawhide—often measuring around 2 to 3 feet in length—is laid flat with designs painted on the exterior surface.[13] The two opposite ends are then folded inward to meet at the center, forming the primary seams, followed by folding the adjacent sides over to enclose the contents, creating a flattened pouch.[1] Holes are punched or burned along the edges using awls or heated tools, through which thongs of sinew, leather, or braided horsehair are laced to secure the flaps, often crossing over the top for closure.[28] In box or case variations, multiple creases are made perpendicular and parallel to form rigid panels, with the hide folded along these lines to construct a three-dimensional container.[15] The corners are reinforced by overlapping folds and stitching, while lids or flaps are shaped similarly and attached via lacing, allowing the structure to maintain form under load during transport.[8] Cylindrical forms, less common, involve rolling the hide into a tube and seaming it longitudinally with ties before capping the ends.[2] These techniques, executed primarily by women using bone or antler tools for precision, relied on the rawhide's contraction during drying to achieve waterproof rigidity, preventing contents from shifting.[13]Decoration Methods
Parfleches were primarily decorated through painting applied directly to the prepared rawhide surface before folding and assembly. This process involved stretching the rawhide on stakes to create a taut painting field, where women of Plains tribes executed free-hand geometric designs using natural earth pigments such as red and yellow ocher, black from charred materials, and white clay, often mixed with binders like animal fat, hide glue, or plant saps such as prickly pear juice for adhesion.[13][29] Post-contact with European traders in the 18th century, synthetic pigments like mercury vermilion were incorporated, expanding the color palette while maintaining traditional application methods.[13] Tools for painting included styluses made from bone, wood, horn, or stone for drawing precise lines and outlines, and rudimentary brushes fashioned by chewing the ends of willow or cottonwood twigs to form soft tips suitable for dots and fills. Designs typically featured symmetrical geometric motifs—triangles, diamonds, circles, frets, and hourglass shapes—arranged in borders and central panels, with tribal variations such as the bold, interlocking patterns of Lakota or Cheyenne styles; these were often outlined in black or brown before filling with colors to prevent bleeding, followed by a fixative coat of thinned glue or varnish applied over the damp surface.[13][29] The designs aligned with the future folds of the parfleche, ensuring visual continuity when folded into its final envelope or box form.[13] An earlier technique, predating widespread painting around 1840, involved incising or etching designs into the rawhide surface using sharp tools to create textured patterns visible through differential staining or swelling of the hide. This method, observed in pre-1880 examples, produced subtler, more durable decorations suited to the rawhide's properties but was largely supplanted by painting as horse-based nomadic life emphasized portable, visually striking containers. Natural dyes from plants and minerals supplemented pigments for select colors like green from copper or blue from earth sources.[13][15] Beading and quillwork, common on tanned leather goods, were rarely applied to parfleches due to the stiff, untanned rawhide's incompatibility with such attachments.[15]Types and Variations
Envelope-Style Bags
Envelope-style bags constitute a prevalent variant of parfleche among Plains Indian tribes, formed by folding a large rectangular sheet of rawhide into an overlapping flap configuration resembling an envelope.[1] The rawhide, often derived from buffalo or elk hides, undergoes preparation involving soaking to remove hair and flesh, followed by stretching and sun-drying to impart rigidity and resistance to wear.[1] The two ends of the rectangle are folded inward to meet centrally, with the resulting flaps laced together using sinew or leather thongs threaded through punched holes or slits along the edges, enabling secure closure while allowing access for packing.[1] These bags typically measure around 27 by 17 inches, as exemplified by a Cheyenne specimen dated circa 1920, which utilized semi-tanned rawhide secured with leather ties.[30] Exterior surfaces are adorned with painted geometric motifs—such as interlocking rectangles, zigzags, and hourglass shapes—applied using natural pigments in vibrant hues including red, yellow, blue, and green, with designs varying by tribe to denote ownership or cultural motifs.[1][30] Interior surfaces often remain unpainted to preserve functionality.[31] Primarily employed for storage and transport in nomadic contexts, envelope-style parfleches accommodated bulky provisions like dried meat, pemmican, seeds, and plants, alongside clothing and personal effects, supporting seasonal migrations after bison herds.[31][30] Their flat, lightweight profile facilitated stacking on travois or horseback, while the tough rawhide construction—capable of withstanding rough handling and even deflecting arrows—ensured durability during travel.[31] Also termed "tipi bags" for their common placement within encampments, these versatile containers served multipurpose domestic roles across tribes including Cheyenne, Crow, Lakota, Kiowa, and Comanche.[30][31]