Flower Iconography on Handle
The artistry of porcupine quill work is a skill that not many can master. These quills are individually dyed, soaked, inserted into the bark, and then mended down on the backside of the bark to form a single design. In Anishinaabe culture, specific colors and the ways in which these colors are used may have very symbolic meanings. On this particular piece, the ceremonial dance fan showcases flowers colored in reds and yellows. In the Anishinaabe culture, red can be symbolic of discipline, as related by Alice Williams an Anishinaabe quiltmaker who explains this in an article she wrote about how she uses colors (Williams, 1989). Yellow is symbolic for the sun, summer, and honest day. The red colors could represent the pain and suffering of the sick little girl in the tale of the jingle dress dance, while the yellow could represent the girls healing process when she performed this dance herself.
Watch a tutorial on how quill work is crafted by Myna Toulouse (Toulouse, 2011).