Interpretations

This item’s design is laid out in three spaces, in which the quills on the top and bottom sections slant toward the middle, and a crisscross line runs through the middle. Each side is decorated the same, but most of the quills are missing on one of the bottom sides of the item. Other items like this one have been described in publications focused on Odawa art from this specific area, and may have been made in precisely the same context. Ottawa Quill Work on Birch Bark, published by the Harbor Springs Historical Commission in 1983, provides images of three such items very similar in size, which were part of an exhibition at the Andrew Blackbird Museum located in the city of Harbor Springs, Michigan. These include a small rectangular needle book and an item almost identical to this one. However, these two have the quills laid differently and they are blue and white in color. On the rectangular one all the quills are going across vertically in the same direction, and on the pincushion, one line of quills is laid vertical across the bottom, and one line is slanting to the left across the top. Like the item featured here, this one also has a crisscross line of quills that separate the top and bottom of the design. This other pincushion also has a green ribbon attached to it which shows how it would be placed on the sewer’s wrist. The third item is another pincushion in the same shape as the one featured here from the MSU Museum, but has a Christian cross design on it with small quilled circles around it; these alternate between red and white. This piece is in the collections of the Andrew Blackbird Museum, and is still in their permanent display. Notably, the colors on all these pieces (green, red, blue, white) have significance in the Mide'wiwin ancient spiritual society of the Anishinaabek (Hoffman 1891).

Both of these items were loaned from the Weltmuseum Wien museum in Vienna, Austria. All the items have the same circa date of 1850.