Colorful Plateau Cornhusk Native American Sally Bag

Very nice fully beaded Plateau belt on saddle leather. Note: all back stitches go through. Colors of greasy yellow, red, white, and blue on leather. Period: Early 20th Century Orig...

19th Century Plateau beaded figurative belt. Extra wide with double buckles. Horse dancer, hourglass and geometric motif. Beads of light blue, dar...

Coushatta lidded pine needle basket with pine cone and needle décor two sides and top. This woven by L.C. John, the last of the great Coushatta basket...

Coushatta lidded pine needle basket with pine cone and needle décor two sides and top. This woven by L.C. John, the last of the great Coushatta basket...

Native American Coushatta lidded pine needle basket with pine cone and needle décor two sides and top. This woven by L.C. John, the last of the great Coushatta basket...

Fully beaded Plateau flat bag with floral design having T at center. Faceted beads, floral on white background with one line blue edging and black str...

Rare large early Northwest Coast Salish hard burden basket dating from the mid to late 1800's. The basket is finely woven from split cedar bark and root...

Very collectible, beautifully handmade Northern Paiute or Piute Native American Indian beaded moccasins feature striking contrasting colors of orange, ye...

This antique North American Indian Olla is woven of willow and devil's claw with banded geometric, checkered and pictorial decoration. Rare, large basket displays well and will make a stunning addition to anyone's collection. The Apache, a nomadic American Indian tribe, followed the buffalo and ranged across the American Southwest including areas of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

This fine tightly woven Pima American Indian basket in unusual geometric pattern is in fine condition. The scale is so wonderful with a nice aged patina.

American Indian folk art Native American basket that is hand woven and coiled. It has been vegetable dyed and the basket lid is removable. The interior rein...

Antique Sioux (Native American/Plains Indian) Parfleche in a box form constructed of rawhide and intricately painted in an abstract design with hourglass and geometric motifs with natural pigments and red trade cloth. At the time this was created, the Sioux Indians were nomadic and are associated with vast areas of the Great Plains of the United States including present-day North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana. Authenticity is guaranteed. Box is in very good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Parfleches are rawhide containers which were fundamental to the Plains way of life. Functioning essentially as protective travelling suitcases, they enabled the nomadic tribes to effectively pursue buffalo herds and migrate between seasonal camps. So critical were they to a nomadic existence that over 40 tribes are known to have historically produced parfleches. Collectively, these tribes inhabited an area which encompassed the entirety of the Plains, as well as the parts of the Southwest, the Transmontane and Western Plateau regions. Parfleches were, out of necessity, robust and versatile objects. They were designed to carry and protect within them anything from medicinal bundles to seasonal clothing or food. In fact, it was because of the containers’ robusticity and variety that parfleches earned their name in the Anglo world. Derived from parer (to parry or turn aside) and fleche (arrow), the word parfleche was coined by 17th century French Canadian voyageurs and used to describe indigenous objects made from rawhide. Despite their common utilitarian function, parfleches served as one of the major mediums through which Plains Indian tribes could develop their long-standing tradition of painting. In fact, it is in large part due to the parfleche that tribal style emerged. Even though parfleche painting developed simultaneously with beading and weaving, painting as an artistic tradition held particular importance in tribal culture. Believed to have evolved from tattooing, it had always been used as a conduit through which tribal and individual identity could be expressed. As such, many tribeswomen were deeply committed, some even religiously, to decorating their parfleche either with incised or painted motifs that were significant to them and/or the tribe. For some tribes, such as the Cheyenne, the decorative processes which surrounded parfleche production were sacred. For others, it seems that their parfleche designs shared an interesting artistic dialogue with their beadwork, indicating a more casual exchange of design motifs. This particular relationship can be seen in Crow parfleche...