Grasshopper's treasures - Part II

A guest post by Grasshopper

Hi everybody, here is the next installment in the Native American auction I recently won. Some of you may recognize this photo Regina posted on that old blog called Palingates (Remember her?). Anyway, I've had these for about 40 years, they were given to me by a family friend who knew I loved all things Indian (except for the scalping). They are 9" from wrist to forearm. I asked a few knowledgeable people about the cuffs and they said they were local, meaning the Wisconsin/Illinois area, but nobody knew which tribe.

I knew the cuffs were included in the auction lot from their photo, but when I got to see them close up at the preview, I was amazed at the similarities to the ones hanging on my wall all these years. Same colors, same type of beads, similar flora and same white background. So similar yet completely different. They are smaller, at 6" from wrist to forearm, perhaps made for a woman or a child. With a little research and some help from Cowans auction house, I'm now quite certain they are from the Ojibwe tribe in the Western Great Lakes region.

I cleaned the one on the left to show the condition at the time of the auction.

Sometimes I try to figure out what flowers or plants or critters they were trying to apply to their beadwork. Perhaps after smoking a Peace Pipe they began embellishing and creating new variations of the nature around them with their imaginations?

The fringe on this pair is much longer and are very dried out and stiff. I'll have to figure out a way to oil them without damaging the beadwork. By all accounts they were probably made between 1840 and 1860. Pretty good condition for that age. For all I know, they may have been sitting in an old chest for the last hundred years. I'm sure there's more history to these beauties but this is all I have to share with you for now. Thanks, Dances with Grasshoppers.

Here are some links about the Ojibwe:

Ojibwe People
Ojibwa Indians
Clothing and beadwork
Photos of Ojibwe beadwork

Grasshopper's treasures - Part I - UPDATE

A few weeks back Grasshopper mentioned an auction that was going to take place near him. He even offered to bid on our behalf if anything caught our eye and ship it to us, as long as it wasn't a car. Peter wouldn't settle for anything less than a Packard, so it didn't happen (ha ha ha). Joking aside, our friend was successful in securing the lot that had captured his imagination and sent me many photos of his treasures. Grasshopper put his experience in context:

Hi Regina, as you know, I can be an excitable boy and not a very materialistic one at that, but as soon as I heard "arrowheads" (as a gardener and digger of many holes, I was always half looking for one) and laid eyes on this auction display photo, 6 weeks ago, I knew it had to be mine. I became obsessed, lost sleep and when I finally got to examine everything close up I thought it would be way too expensive. At the preview there were 4 people with a magnifying glass hovering over MY stuff for about a half hour, taking notes and pictures so I figured they KNEW. Apparently not. Not knowing what the auctioneer was even talking about I just held my card up in the air and magically the bidding stopped at a very comfortable level for me, so my heart soared like an eagle (much like the one on the root club). Needless to say, I'm just about as happy as a grasshopper can be.

Grasshopper's treasures

We decided to show the photos in batches and here's the first one, of a couple of carved root clubs:

The intricate handle "chip" carving may mean that these belonged to a chief, or shaman/medicine man.

They're made from the root ball/burl of a young birch tree and the carvings release the spirit of the sacred animal and then they go out and club the crap out of each other with it for fun on Saturday nights. The two I have definitely have battle scars.

Well done and thank you for the colourful description of the clubs, Grasshopper!

There are more photos to come, stay tuned for future posts.

[Please click on images to see all the details in full glory.]

UPDATE

Grasshopper has been doing some research on various items and found something fascinating about the root clubs HERE.