Teton Sioux Beaded Buffalo Hide Possible Bag, Plains

Teton Sioux (Lakota), northern Plains

1880

Buffalo hide, glass beads, sinew

Height 13 1/2" (34.3 cm); width 19 1/4" (48.9 cm)

Provenance: Private collection, Shasta, CA; old lead collection seal

Possible bags were essential domestic containers in Lakota life, carried on horseback and hung within the tipi to store personal belongings and household materials, their fully beaded surfaces serving as both protection for the contents and as expressions of the maker's decorative skill. The lane stitch beadwork technique in horizontal bands, characteristic of Teton Sioux production of the 1880s, produced a dense and durable surface well suited to objects subject to regular handling and travel. The light blue ground with polychrome cross and geometric block motifs is consistent with the color palette and design vocabulary of Lakota possible bags of this period.

This bag is fully beaded on buffalo hide with a light blue ground and polychrome geometric patterning in red, dark blue, and white, sinew-sewn throughout with hide fringe at the base. The old lead collection seal on the bag provides a documented institutional or collection history predating its entry into the California private collection. Provenance traces to a private collection in Shasta, California.

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