[NATIVE AMERICAN] c. 1880–1890 Matched Pair of Sioux Porcupine-Quilled Tipi Bags

A Matched Pair of Sioux Quilled Hide Tipi Bags. Northern Plains, circa 1880–1890. Deer or elk hide, dyed porcupine quills, metal cones, and tassels.

A well-proportioned pair of soft hide storage bags, distinguished by narrow horizontal bands of predominantly red porcupine quillwork. Short yellow and violet passages interrupt the longer lines, while stacked groups of shorter bars form a central register on each front. Pink tufts accent the ends of these smaller elements and selected points along the outer bands. The extensive undecorated hide gives the fine quilled lines unusual prominence.

Broad folding flaps close the upper openings, accompanied by long hide ties. Slender quill-wrapped pendants hang across the fronts, several terminating in dark metal cones with pink tassels. The backs remain plain. Although closely matched, the bags retain small variations in spacing and arrangement that distinguish their individually worked surfaces.

Quillwork required considerable preparation before ornament could be applied: quills were gathered, sorted, dyed, and manipulated into the desired pattern. The increasing availability of glass beads during the nineteenth century expanded the materials available to Plains artists, but quill decoration continued alongside beadwork. The narrow, lustrous bands on these bags demonstrate the particular suitability of quills to linear ornament, where changes of color can be introduced within remarkably slender passages.

Tipi bags were made to hold personal possessions and could be carried in matched sets beside a saddle during travel. This practical arrangement also made their decorated faces visible beyond the household. In the pair offered here, the soft volume of the hide and the restrained placement of quillwork preserve a close relationship between useful construction and deliberate ornament.