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Quillwork

Quillwork is a traditional Indigenous art form originating in North America, characterized by the use of dyed and flattened porcupine quills to create intricate embroidery on items such as clothing, moccasins, bags, and ceremonial objects.^[1] This technique, developed and primarily practiced by Native American women, involves collecting, cleaning, dyeing, and stitching the quills onto leather or other substrates using tools like awls and sinew threads.^[1] Predating European contact, quillwork served both aesthetic and cultural purposes, conveying personal, tribal, and social significance through geometric, floral, and symbolic designs.^[2] Historically, quillwork flourished among various tribes across the continent, particularly on the Great Plains and in the Eastern Woodlands, with peak usage in the 18th and 19th centuries before the introduction of glass beads by European traders largely supplanted it.^[3] Tribes such as the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Cree, Huron, Lakota, and Sahnish employed the art to decorate war shirts, robes, pouches, and jewelry, often requiring extensive time—up to a year for a single garment—to complete.^[1]^[4] The quills, typically 1 to 3 inches long, were dyed using natural vegetable and mineral sources like berries, tree barks, and indigo, producing colors including red, black, yellow, blue, green, and purple, with techniques such as wrapping, weaving, plaiting, and loom work allowing for dense patterns of up to 14 quills per inch.^[4]^[1] Culturally, quillwork held sacred value as an expression of skill, identity, and storytelling, with designs reflecting exploits, rank, or spiritual elements unique to the artist or community.^[2] It was traded among tribes and later influenced by synthetic aniline dyes in the mid-19th century, though traditional methods persist today through revivals led by artists like the Lakota's Tim Lammers, preserving this endangered heritage in museum collections and contemporary works. As of 2025, artists such as Dyani White Hawk continue to innovate with quillwork in contemporary exhibitions and installations.^[4]^[2]^[5]

Definition and Materials

Definition and Overview

Quillwork is a traditional form of textile embellishment practiced by Indigenous peoples of North America, utilizing the quills of porcupines—and occasionally bird feathers—to decorate a variety of items including clothing, moccasins, bags, baskets, and birch bark containers.^[6]^[1] This art form involves transforming the natural spines into decorative elements through processes that highlight their rigidity and versatility, creating intricate patterns on substrates such as leather, hide, fabric, or bark.^[7]^[8] The core characteristics of quillwork include its labor-intensive nature, akin to embroidery, where quills are prepared by dyeing with natural or commercial pigments and flattening to achieve pliability for stitching.^[9]^[3] This results in bold geometric or curvilinear designs that emphasize the material's inherent texture and color variations, often in hues like red, yellow, black, and blue derived from vegetable sources.^[6]^[1] The terminology "quillwork" stems from the word "quill," which originally denoted a hollow feather stem but extended around 1600 to include porcupine spines due to their similar structure.^[10] Primarily associated with Indigenous communities in the Subarctic, Northeastern Woodlands, Great Lakes, and Northern Plains regions—such as the Lakota, Cheyenne, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee—this craft represents a distinctly pre-colonial aesthetic tied to local ecosystems.^[9]^[6] Quillwork is distinguished from later crafts like beadwork by its reliance on naturally occurring, rigid porcupine spines harvested from the continent's wildlife, predating European contact and the influx of imported glass beads or synthetic threads.^[7]^[1] This native technique underscores a self-sufficient artistic tradition unique to North American Indigenous cultures, emphasizing manual dexterity over traded materials.^[3]^[8]

Materials and Sourcing

The primary material in quillwork is porcupine quills sourced from the North American porcupine, Erethizon dorsatum, a rodent native to coniferous and mixed-forest habitats across Canada, the northeastern and western United States, and northern Mexico.^[11] These quills, which serve as a defense mechanism, are selected for their ideal properties: lengths typically ranging from 2 to 3 inches, providing sufficient material for intricate designs; a balance of rigidity and flexibility that allows shaping without breaking; and natural color variations, often featuring white shafts with brown or black tips that can be cleaned to a uniform white base before dyeing.^[11]^[12]^[13] Traditional sourcing emphasizes humane practices to honor the animal and ensure sustainability, such as collecting naturally shed quills from the forest floor or gently harvesting from live porcupines using methods like tossing a blanket over the animal, allowing quills to adhere to the fabric as it moves without causing injury.^[14] In some cases, quills are obtained from roadkill to avoid waste, always with respect for the creature's spirit.^[15] Regional availability significantly influences quillwork's prevalence; while porcupines are widespread in northern and eastern North America, their absence in arid Southwest regions, such as among some Pueblo or Navajo communities, limited the craft's adoption there, leading to alternative decorative techniques.^[11] Secondary materials occasionally include bird feathers from species like eagles or turkeys, employed for decorative effects similar to quills in embroidery or adornment, though less commonly due to the porcupine's superior suitability.^[9] Common substrates for attaching quillwork include brain-tanned leather, valued for its soft, fibrous texture that holds stitches securely without cracking; birch bark, used especially for containers in northern Indigenous traditions; and occasionally wool or canvas for more contemporary or flexible applications.^[16]^[9]^[17] Natural dyes derived from plants provide the vibrant colors essential to quillwork, with bloodroot roots yielding reds, wild grape vines producing purples, and black walnut hulls creating browns, all applied after cleaning the quills.^[9] Mordants, such as acidic solutions from currants or vinegar, or mineral-based options like iron oxides from rust or hardwood ashes, are used to fix these dyes onto the quills, ensuring colorfastness and depth during the simmering process.^[18]^[9]

Historical Development

Pre-Columbian Origins

Quillwork, a traditional Indigenous art form using porcupine quills for embellishment, has deep pre-Columbian roots in North America, with evidence tracing its origins to early moccasin decorations from the sixth century CE. Archaeological finds, such as quillworking tools unearthed in Alberta, Canada, further confirm its practice on the Plains as early as the sixth century CE, highlighting the sophistication of these early techniques among Indigenous communities. These artifacts demonstrate that quillwork was an established craft well before European contact, primarily in regions inhabited by porcupines, including the Subarctic, Woodlands, and Plains areas.^[19]^[20] Oral traditions among various Indigenous groups underscore quillwork's sacred and cultural significance in its formative period. For instance, Cheyenne oral history, as recounted by Picking Bones Woman to ethnographer George Bird Grinnell, describes how the skill was imparted to the tribe by a man who married a buffalo woman, portraying quillwork as a divine gift essential for personal and communal adornment. This narrative reflects broader Indigenous views of quillwork as a spiritually charged practice, often tied to women's roles and transmitted through generations in Subarctic and Woodlands societies. Such stories emphasize its emergence not merely as decoration but as a means of cultural expression and social cohesion.^[9] In its initial applications, pre-Columbian quillwork adorned functional and ritual items, including birch bark boxes, cradleboards, and ceremonial objects, using natural dyes to create intricate geometric patterns. Predominantly a women's craft, it carried social prestige, with skilled practitioners in groups like the Mi'kmaq in the Northeast—known as the "porcupine people" for their expertise—and precursors to the Blackfoot on the Plains holding revered status within their communities. The practice spread geographically across porcupine-rich territories from the Northeastern Woodlands to the Great Lakes and Plains, serving personal adornment and ritual purposes without external influences. Quillwork in the Great Lakes region, for example, featured prominently in Woodland Indigenous designs, evidencing its widespread adoption in the late prehistoric period through preserved artifacts and tools.^[21]^[22]^[23]

Post-Contact Evolution

Following European contact in the 16th century, quillwork evolved significantly through interactions with colonial trade networks, particularly the fur trade from the 17th to 19th centuries. Native American artisans, especially from Great Lakes and Northeastern tribes, began applying traditional quill techniques to European-introduced items to facilitate exchange with French and British traders. Common examples include knife sheaths and pipe tampers decorated with wrapped, woven, or embroidered porcupine quills in geometric patterns, often using natural dyes. These adaptations blended indigenous aesthetics with practical trade goods, enhancing the economic value of quillwork in fur-trading posts across regions like the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi Valley.^[24]^[25]^[9] The 19th century marked a pivotal shift as glass beads, introduced by European traders as early as the 16th century and becoming more widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries through the fur trade, offered brighter colors and greater availability than porcupine quills—though adoption varied by region and tribe, with quillwork persisting longer in some areas. This led to the emergence of hybrid quill-bead techniques, where quills were combined with beads on items like clothing and containers, gradually diminishing the prominence of pure quillwork by the 1850s. Despite this, quillwork experienced a peak in the 19th century through mass production of decorated birch bark items, such as boxes and baskets, by Odawa and Ojibwe women targeted at growing tourist markets in areas like Michigan and Minnesota. Early post-contact examples are preserved in collections from the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806), including quilled garments and accessories from Upper Missouri tribes that document the art's adaptation and diversity.^[26]^[2]^[27] By the early 20th century, amid intense assimilation pressures from U.S. government policies like boarding schools and land allotment, ethnographic documentation became crucial for preserving quillwork. Anthropologist Frances Densmore's studies in the 1920s, particularly among the Chippewa (Ojibwe), recorded techniques and cultural contexts of porcupine quill embroidery—referred to as "gawe'ag"—on birch bark and leather items. Her work, including detailed observations in Chippewa Customs (1929), highlighted quillwork's role in daily life and ceremonies, ensuring knowledge transmission despite declining practice.^[28]

Techniques and Methods

Quill Preparation

The preparation of porcupine quills for quillwork commences with a thorough cleaning process to remove natural oils, grease, and any attached fur or debris, ensuring the quills are pliable and receptive to further treatment. Quills are typically plucked by hand directly from the porcupine to avoid damage, then soaked in hot soapy water, with the water changed at least five times until the quills turn a bright white. This step may require multiple rinses and, for particularly soiled quills, a mild bleach solution, though care must be taken to prevent brittleness or cracking. Once cleaned, the quills are spread on towels or paper to dry completely, preventing mold and maintaining their integrity.^[29]^[30] Following cleaning, quills are softened and flattened to create workable strips suitable for decoration. Small bundles of quills, about one inch in diameter, are soaked in warm water for approximately five minutes to make them malleable; alternatively, saliva from the mouth can be used for softening, as it provides natural moisture. The softened quills are then pressed flat using traditional methods such as biting between the teeth or rubbing against bone tools, or with modern alternatives like a quillwork comb, ensuring the barbed end faces outward to avoid snags. This flattening process removes the quills' natural roundness, transforming them into flexible, ribbon-like forms that can be easily manipulated without breaking. Quills are sorted by size and origin—such as tail for thickness or belly for fineness—to match specific project needs during this stage.^[30]^[31]^[29] Dyeing enhances the quills' aesthetic potential and is performed after cleaning and flattening, using natural plant extracts boiled or simmered in water to achieve vibrant, lasting colors. Common recipes include simmering quills in wild sunflower or fox moss extracts for yellow, bloodroot for orange-red, chokecherry or cochineal for red, larkspur for blue-green, and wild grape for black; bundles are stirred gently and simmered for 30 minutes to three hours, avoiding vigorous boiling to prevent damage. Mordants are essential for color fixation and depth: alum imparts yellow tones and improves permanence, while urine serves as a source of ammonia, often combined with copper to produce green shades. After dyeing, quills are rinsed in vinegar or cool water to set the color and prevent fading, then dried and occasionally rubbed with animal fats to retain suppleness.^[18]^[30] Prepared quills undergo quality control and storage to preserve their usability and prevent degradation. Artisans select only defect-free quills—shiny, straight, and free of cracks or discoloration—for optimal durability, discarding any that might weaken during application. Dyed quills are bundled by color, size, and type, traditionally stored in animal bladder pouches or modern resealable plastic bags; damp quills are kept for no more than two weeks to avoid mold, while fully dried ones can be stored longer on absorbent paper. Proper storage maintains the quills' flexibility, ensuring they remain viable for weaving or wrapping without brittleness.^[29]^[30]

Decoration Techniques

Quillwork decoration techniques primarily involve sewing or weaving prepared porcupine quills onto base materials such as leather, fabric, or birchbark to create intricate patterns and borders. The appliqué method entails piercing the base material with an awl to create holes, then sewing flattened quills onto the surface using sinew or thread in a backstitch pattern, often arranged in rows to form borders or curvilinear designs on items like moccasins and bags.^[32]^[33] This technique allows for flexible patterning, where individual quills can be spliced seamlessly by inserting a new quill under the previous stitch and trimming excess after drying.^[33] The wrapping technique coils softened quills around slender cores such as wooden splints, horsehair, or rawhide strips to produce decorative bands or rosettes, which can then be attached to larger objects or used in basketry.^[34]^[1] In this process, the quill is folded over the core at a right angle, wrapped at least twice, and locked by inserting the next quill underneath before continuing the coil, creating geometric patterns without sewing until the wrap is complete.^[34] This method is particularly suited for cylindrical items like pipe stems or hairbrush handles, emphasizing the quill's natural flexibility.^[35] Embroidery styles in quillwork often interlock quills through pre-punched holes, enabling filled areas or complex motifs; the lane stitching, also known as the single-quill line technique, fills broad sections by sewing whole quills along a single guide line on leather, bending each quill over the thread and splicing as needed to maintain continuity.^[32]^[36] For zigzag embroidery, quills are flipped alternately between two parallel lines stitched 1/4 to 3/8 inches apart, forming diamond or wavy patterns ideal for borders, with the backstitch securing the quill's fold.^[33] Plaiting extends this by weaving multiple quills over and under each other in a band, starting from a central loop and adding quills along the edges for denser, woven-like effects on clothing or accessories.^[37]^[1] Loom work involves weaving flattened quills on a simple frame loom, similar to bead looms, to create narrow bands, belts, tumplines, or decorative strips. Medium-length quills from the porcupine's back are typically used, threaded through warp strands of sinew or thread, and woven with weft quills to form patterns that can be sewn onto larger items like clothing or bags. This technique allows for efficient production of linear designs and was common among Great Lakes and Plains tribes.^[32]^[38] Traditional tools for these techniques include bone or metal awls to punch holes in the base material, facilitating precise quill insertion without tearing, and needles threaded with sinew for stitching.^[32]^[1] Modern adaptations incorporate beeswax to lubricate threads, reducing friction during sewing, and sometimes plastic or cardboard bases for wrapping to simplify construction while preserving the aesthetic.^[34] These methods build on prepared quills—flattened and dyed—to achieve durable, visually striking decorations across Native North American traditions.^[39]

Cultural and Symbolic Importance

Regional Variations

Quillwork in the Northeastern Woodlands, practiced by tribes such as the Mi'kmaq and Ojibwe, is characterized by curvilinear floral and scroll motifs often applied to birch bark boxes and containers.^[21] These designs frequently incorporate double-curved patterns that evoke natural elements like vines and leaves, reflecting the region's abundant birch resources and forested environment.^[40] Among the Ojibwe (also known as Anishinaabe), quillwork appears on items like cradleboards and outfits, blending traditional quills with trade materials such as silk ribbons for enhanced visual complexity.^[40] In the Great Lakes region, particularly among the Odawa and other Anishinaabe groups, quillwork emphasizes band-style embroidery on clothing, bags, and accessories.^[41] These linear motifs create rhythmic borders that highlight the functional yet decorative nature of items like moccasins and storage pouches, adapting to the area's waterways and seasonal mobility.^[40] Northern Plains quillwork, as seen in the traditions of the Blackfoot and Cheyenne, favors geometric and angular designs such as diamonds, arrows, and interlocking shapes applied to hide robes, shirts, and parfleches.^[42] These bold, symmetrical patterns, dyed in vibrant mineral-based colors, convey strength and directional movement, suited to the open prairies and equestrian culture of the area.^[3] Influences from later ledger art traditions further emphasized these angular forms, transitioning quillwork into more narrative expressions on portable hides.^[3] Among Subarctic peoples like the Dene, quillwork tends toward looser, wrapped applications on footwear, tool handles, and birchbark items, prioritizing durability in extreme cold and mobility across tundra landscapes.^[43] This technique involves coiling or wrapping quills around sinew or leather for reinforcement, often with simpler linear or dotted motifs that withstand harsh environmental conditions without intricate weaving.^[43] Such adaptations highlight the practical focus of Subarctic styles, where quillwork enhances functionality on essential gear like snowshoes and knife sheaths.^[43] Quillwork held profound spiritual significance in many Indigenous North American societies, often viewed as a sacred art form that connected practitioners to the spiritual world and conferred ritual power, particularly to women.^[1] In Lakota culture, the origins of quillwork trace back to the spirit Double Woman, who appeared in dreams to select women, teaching them the techniques and restricting the practice to those spiritually inspired; this made quillwork a holy craft used in ceremonies like the Sun Dance, where designs on items such as vests symbolized personal visions and sacred knowledge.^[7] Among the Blackfoot, porcupine quillwork was regarded as a sacred women's craft, with rituals invoking the spirits associated with quills to imbue creations with protective and healing energies.^[34] Similarly, in Mi'kmaq tradition, quillwork carried spiritual weight, earning the people the name "Porcupine People" for their deep cultural bond with the porcupine, whose quills were seen as vessels of natural and ancestral power in decorative practices.^[21] The symbolism embedded in quillwork's colors and patterns further amplified its spiritual and cultural depth, representing clan identities, natural elements, and narrative stories that reinforced communal beliefs and protections. Colors derived from plant dyes held specific meanings across tribes; for instance, red often symbolized life force or vitality, while white represented purity and the sacred, and black denoted power or the earth, allowing quillworkers to encode messages of harmony with nature or tribal lore into items like robes and bags.^[44] Geometric patterns, common in many designs, served as symbols of protection and balance, evoking elements like the four directions or seasonal cycles, whereas motifs such as the dragonfly in Lakota quillwork signified transformation and renewal, tying the art to broader cosmological stories passed through generations.^[3] Socially, quillwork functioned as a marker of status and community cohesion, primarily crafted by skilled women who gained prestige through their expertise, often within dedicated societies that enhanced their influence in tribal affairs. In Arapaho society, elite women in quilling groups produced works for ceremonies, gifts, and rites of passage, such as elaborately quilled cradleboards that protected infants and symbolized familial continuity and spiritual safeguarding during early life transitions. This matrilineal transmission of knowledge reinforced gender roles, positioning quillwork as an exclusively female domain that not only preserved cultural teachings but also facilitated economic exchanges through traded or gifted items, strengthening intertribal alliances and social bonds. Contemporary scholarship, as of 2020, continues to explore the evolving gender dynamics in quillwork practices amid cultural revivals.^[45]

Contemporary Practices

Decline and Revival

The introduction of glass beads in the mid-19th century led to the decline of quillwork, as beads were easier and faster to use for embroidery, gradually supplanting the labor-intensive quill techniques among many Indigenous communities.^[21] This shift was exacerbated by forced assimilation policies, particularly through U.S. government and church-run boarding schools from the late 19th to mid-20th century, where Native children were prohibited from practicing traditional arts and instead taught European-style crafts to erase cultural heritage.^[46] Additionally, the loss of porcupine habitats due to habitat destruction, overhunting, and environmental changes reduced access to quills, further contributing to quillwork's near-disappearance by the mid-20th century.^[47] In the early 20th century, preservation efforts began through ethnographic collections, such as those acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, which documented and safeguarded quillwork artifacts from Plains and other Indigenous groups to prevent total loss.^[48] Indigenous scholars like Ella Cara Deloria also played a key role in the 1930s, recording traditional Dakota practices—including quillwork techniques and their cultural context—in ethnographic writings that preserved knowledge for future generations. Revival gained momentum in the late 20th century, influenced by broader movements like the American Indian Movement (AIM) of the 1960s and 1970s, which fostered cultural pride and encouraged the reclamation of traditional practices amid activism for Indigenous rights.^[49] The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 enabled tribes to control their educational systems, facilitating the integration of quillwork and other traditional arts into school curricula to transmit skills to youth.^[50] The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 further supported revival by mandating the return of cultural items, including quillwork objects, from museums to tribes, allowing communities to reconnect with and reactivate associated traditions.^[51] Targeted initiatives in the 1990s and 2000s revitalized quillwork in specific regions, such as workshops organized by the Dene Cultural Institute in Wha Ti, Northwest Territories, starting in 1999, where elders taught weaving and embroidery techniques to community members, successfully restoring the practice among Dene peoples.^[52] These efforts, combined with ongoing community-led programs, marked a shift from decline to active cultural reclamation, ensuring quillwork's survival into the 21st century.

Modern Artists and Innovations

In the 21st century, quillwork has seen renewed vitality through the work of contemporary Native American artists who integrate traditional techniques with modern expressions. Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty, an Assiniboine and Sioux artist born in 1969 and enrolled at the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, exemplifies this evolution by creating traditional Northern Plains clothing and accessories adorned with porcupine quill embroidery and beadwork, often blending these elements into wearable fashion pieces that honor family legacies while appealing to broader audiences.^[53]^[54] Her collaborative projects, such as the 2006 "Give Away Horses" dress made with her mother Joyce and daughter Jessa Rae, showcase intricate quill designs on regalia, emphasizing themes of resilience and cultural continuity.^[55] Other prominent practitioners include Dorothy Brave Eagle, an Oglala Lakota artist from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, renowned for her award-winning quillwork on items like saddle bags and otter bags, which earned her best-of-class recognition at events such as the inaugural Cherokee Art Market.^[56] Brave Eagle, a self-taught master of bead and quill techniques, dedicated much of her career to teaching workshops that preserved Lakota-style quillwork, passing on methods like wrapping and sewing to younger generations despite her passing in 2021.^[57]^[58] Marcus Amerman, a Choctaw Nation artist born in 1959, pushes boundaries by incorporating porcupine quills into contemporary jewelry and multimedia pieces, combining them with beadwork to create pictorial designs that reflect both historical Native imagery and modern pop culture motifs, such as beaded bracelets featuring the Statue of Liberty.^[59] His work, displayed in collections like the Heard Museum, highlights quillwork's adaptability to personal adornments beyond traditional regalia.^[60] Innovations in quillwork since the 2000s include hybrid applications, such as applying quilled embroidery to non-traditional materials like denim for contemporary fashion items, and the use of synthetic dyes like Rit for brighter, more durable colors that expand design possibilities while maintaining cultural integrity.^[61] Artists also employ digital tools, such as Adobe Illustrator, to design patterns before executing them in quills, allowing for precise replication of complex motifs on birchbark or fabric.^[62] These advancements have gained recognition through major exhibitions, including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian's "Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian" (opened 2010), which featured quill-embellished Plains and Woodlands artifacts alongside modern interpretations.^[63] Fogarty received multiple best-of-class awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market for her quillwork, underscoring its institutional acclaim.^[64] Family members like her mother, Joyce Growing Thunder Fogarty, earned the NEA National Heritage Fellowship in 1999 for exemplary Plains quillwork, influencing the next generation's innovations.^[65] In 2025, quillwork continued to thrive in exhibitions such as the "Indigenous Quill Art" show at the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society (April–October), featuring Anishinaabe quillwork and traveling to the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and Dyani White Hawk's "Love Language" at the Walker Art Center, blending quillwork with painting and beadwork to explore Lakota heritage.^[66]^[67] As of November 2025, quillwork faces challenges from declining North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) populations, attributed in part to climate change-induced variability in winter precipitation and habitat shifts, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where anecdotal and modeled data show reduced densities.^[68]^[69] To counter accessibility barriers, post-2020 online tutorials have proliferated, offering step-by-step guidance on techniques like quill wrapping and sewing, enabling global learners to engage with the craft amid these ecological pressures.^[70]^[31]

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[37]
Introduction to Techniques and Methods of Porcupine Quillwork
The goal of these pages is to present in simple terms some of the techniques used in the ancient art of porcupine quill emboidery.Missing: applique | Show results with:applique
[38]
https://www.mpm.edu/index.php/educators/wirp/great-lakes-traditional-culture/material-culture
[39]
Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects book
American Indians of the Micmac nation have made porcupine quillwork baskets of dazzling patterns and complexity woven onto birch bark foundations. None of ...Missing: kmaq | Show results with:kmaq
[40]
Anishinaabe outfit collected by Andrew Foster - Infinity of Nations
The Anishinaabe and eastern Plains clothing and ceremonial items acquired by Lieutenant Andrew Foster during his military service in North AmericaMissing: variations | Show results with:variations
[41]
The thunderbird and underwater panther in the material culture of ...
... zigzag band of quillwork. A double line or. band on the thunderbird in bag #35 is used ; and a single zigzag band creates the striking outline and solid ...
[42]
[PDF] Material culture of the Blackfoot (Blood) Indians of southern Alberta
Oct 30, 1992 · with geometric designs in dark blue and yellow beads. Extendingfrom the distal end are two rect- angular strips of skin edged with light blue ...
[43]
[PDF] The Grey Nuns Northwest Territory Collection: Embroidery in the ...
The Dene embellished their clothing with dyed porcupine quills that were either wrapped or embroidered. The Métis decorated their clothing with floral ...
[44]
Colonized through Art - University of Nebraska Press
$$65.00Colonized through Art explores how American Indian schools taught children to abandon their cultural heritage and produce artificially “native” crafts.
[45]
Where have all the porcupines gone? - ICT News
Sep 1, 2024 · Quillwork today is becoming a lost art, and the decline of porcupines isn't helping matters. The killing continues. In Washington state, the ...Missing: beadwork boarding
[46]
Collections :: Creating Quillwork | Smithsonian Learning Lab
Dec 31, 2019 · Athabascan peoples harvested porcupine to eat and also carefully processed its quills into a fine material to beautify special items.Missing: 20th | Show results with:20th
[47]
Native American Cultural Revitalization Today | Folklife Today
Nov 24, 2015 · Today there is a process for human remains to be returned to tribes for reburial. In some cases museums are returning sacred objects, while in ...
[48]
Tribally Controlled Schools | Bureau of Indian Education
Second, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 (P.L. 93-638) gave authority to federally recognized tribes to contract with the BIA ...Missing: quillwork | Show results with:quillwork
[49]
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Apr 29, 2024 · Since 1990, Federal law has provided for the protection and return of Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural ...Repatriation of Cultural Items · Requesting Repatriation · Repatriation GrantsMissing: quillwork | Show results with:quillwork<|separator|>
[50]
Whadoo Tehmi Long-ago People's Packsack: Dene Babiche Bags
Jun 7, 2017 · In 1998, Suzan Marie initiated a project to revive this craft. Assisted by elder-instructors, she held workshops in several small Dene ...
[51]
A Family Affair: Get to Know the Growing Thunder Collective
Apr 16, 2025 · Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty creates traditional Northern plains clothing and accessories adorned with beadwork and porcupine quill embroidery.
[52]
Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty's Artwork Honors the Resilience of ...
Mar 11, 2021 · Since she was 16, Assiniboine and Sioux artist Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty—who is from the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana and is now ...
[53]
Joyce, Juanita, and Jessa Rae Growing Thunder's Give Away Horses
My name is Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty, and I am a Assiniboine Sioux from Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. Jessa Rae: My grandma right here, she's a legacy ...
[54]
Winners of inaugural Cherokee Art Market announced | Culture
Beadwork and Quillwork. Best of Class: "Saddle Bags," Dorothy Brave Eagle. 1st Runner Up: "Otter Bag," Jackie Larsen Bread. 2nd Runner Up: "Medicine Crow ...Missing: workshops | Show results with:workshops
[55]
Quillwork - Lakota style - ICT News
Quillwork – Lakota ... Dorothy Brave Eagle, Oglala Lakota artist, is one of the most noted and award winning quill-work artists. ... workshops on the craft. She ...
[56]
DOROTHY BRAVE EAGLE-ROSS - Lakota Times
Sep 30, 2021 · Dorothy was an international award winning artist who specialized in quillwork and beadwork. She retired from the BIA serving as a ...Missing: workshops | Show results with:workshops
[57]
Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian | Facebook
Aug 21, 2016 · Marcus Amerman (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), Beadwork/Quillwork.
[58]
Beadwork | Heard Museum
A beaded bracelet with the Statue of Liberty on it. Marcus Amerman, Choctaw, b. 1959, Bracelet, 2002. Heard Museum purchase, 4153-1. A wooden lattice cradle ...
[59]
A Contemporary Take on Traditional Indigenous Porcupine Quillwork
Porcupine quills, Elk teeth, Dentalium shells, and feathers are Indigenous art materials that predate the European introduction of ...Missing: humane harvesting Erethizon dorsatum
[60]
Mikmaq Quillwork Art Piece Featuring Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance ...
Feb 7, 2024 · Native American Quill. I designed in Adobe Illustrator first then quilled. Took all summer. 12x12. No photo description available.I am a Northern Ute and Hopi beadwork and quillwork artist. I just ...Northern Ute/Hopi beadwork and quillwork artist. You can find more ...More results from www.facebook.com
[61]
Apsáalooke warrior's exploit robe - Infinity of Nations: Art and History ...
Apsáalooke warrior's exploit robe ca. 1850. Fort Benton, Montana Buffalo hide, pigment, red wool trade cloth, beads, porcupine quill, horsehair 224 x 193 cm
[62]
Native Arts | Juanita Growing Thunder-Fogarty
Aug 31, 2006 · Honored four times at Santa Fe Indian Market herself with best of class ribbons, she is especially skilled at quillwork, which she characterizes ...Missing: biography | Show results with:biography
[63]
Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists
She has been a NEA National Heritage Fellow and a Smithsonian Native Scholar Fellow. ... Joyce, Juanita, and Jessa Rae Growing Thunder's Give Away Horses. A ...
[64]
Erethizon dorsatum North American Porcupine - Gov.bc.ca
... impact from climate change (i.e. variability in winter precipitation). There is evidence of population decline in both the short and long term. Range. Range ...
[65]
3 theories about the declining porcupine population in Oregon.
Jul 8, 2025 · The porcupine population in Oregon is declining, according to various naturalists' anecdotal reports and studies.
[66]
Native American Quillwork Tutorial | Step-by-Step Craft ... - YouTube
Mar 1, 2023 · ... porcupines and dyed in a variety of colors using natural materials. Today, you can purchase prepared quills from specialty shops like ...