Making a period correct knife sheath

[Rod]

Isaac---
What's the tribal attribution and approximate time period of that sheath? Very nice work on yours, by the way. I've been thinking on something along those lines for my wife, but I've never attempted quillwork---might just go with the incised and painted rawhide.

My own sheath is a simple rawhide one, riveted with harness rivets, and the top is painted with pigment made from ground scoria ---something we have plenty of, here.

Rod

[Chuck Burrows]

Rod - according to Gaylord Torrence in the fairly recent (and must have) book The Amercan Indian Parfleche, that sheath may well have been picked up by the Lewis and Clark and is dated circa 1800. It was accessioned by the Peale Museum in 1828.
It has been id'd as Ojibwa, but also as Eastern Sioux (Santee), which IMO would be perhaps more likely.
Stylisticaly it is one of the earliest if not the earliest example of the slotted belt loop style.

I did a variation on it using harness leather and some beads and made it convertible - more 1820-30's than 1800:




Here's one I did that's a more east meets west style that would fit the 1800-1830 period - it's not a copy but again inspired by several different originals:


An 1830's style original with typical Northern Plains 8/0 size beading and in blue and white:

[isaac]

Nov 1, 2010 12:34:47 GMT -7 Chuck Burrows said:

Rod - according to Gaylord Torrence in the fairly recent (and must have) book The Amercan Indian Parfleche, that sheath may well have been picked up by the Lewis and Clark and is dated circa 1800. It was accessioned by the Peale Museum in 1828.
It has been id'd as Ojibwa, but also as Eastern Sioux (Santee), which IMO would be perhaps more likely.
Stylisticaly it is one of the earliest if not the earliest example of the slotted belt loop style.

Great info Chuck. That is basically what I know with this addition... It is noted as Ojibwa due to the likelyhood that it was not a L&C sheath but more likely collected by Lt. Hutter and in the files of the Hutter collection is listed a "Chippewa Knife Scabbard." This is mentioned in Arts of Diplomacy by Castle Mcloughlin and is a nice view of some of the Peabody L&C collection. The syle of the sheath and quillwork of this is WAY Dakota and more like a number of other plains (many Dakota) sheaths I have seen than an Ojibwe sheath. That said, the plains-ish style of it, the buffalo parafleche, and the bird quills DO align as possible for western Ojibwe, especially those around Red River. Anyway, I made it since I figured it would be fun and seemed to scream Red River to me and I was trying to make more of my gear align with my location as opposed to the more eastern stuff common among my friends. I wish I still had it and likely will make another similar to it, but this one has now sold to Grand Portage National Monument and is in a display there.

Isaac

[isaac]

Here are a couple more cool sheaths from the eastern plains... some Dakota and most of the quill on all of these is bird, not porky...

[Cody]

Good looking shethes Chuck and Isaac never saw quills sewed that long before looks like something my old fingers might try

[blackhand]

Nov 11, 2010 8:38:25 GMT -7 Cody said:

...never saw quills sewed that long before looks like something my old fingers might try

Keep in mind that those are bird quills (feather shafts) and not porcupine quills...

[Chuck Burrows]

I've got some info on how-to for bird quilling - I'll post it when I can find it. The bird quills need to be split prior to using.........
I also have a bag full of gull quills/feathers (teh most common used apparently) that some day.....

[Lloyd]

Over the last few weeks, I have been making some sheath's for a Christian youth group in Indiana.

Someone gifted them 8 knives so I made up 8 sheaths that at least look somewhat period correct. They are made of either tooling leather or braintan, or both...

Here is a picture of four of them... I knocked out 4 more (no photo) and sent them off yesterday.

[Cody]

Good work Brother .I worked two times up in Ill. at a camp being a counsoler ,think it was Lake Carlson or something like that it was great to work with the kids

[isaac]

Nov 11, 2010 13:04:52 GMT -7 Chuck Burrows said:

I've got some info on how-to for bird quilling - I'll post it when I can find it. The bird quills need to be split prior to using.........
I also have a bag full of gull quills/feathers (teh most common used apparently) that some day.....

I love to see what info you have... I have chatted a little with some folks that have done some birdquillwork and have done soem feather stripping and splitting now... hopefully I can get some dye going and start on this project sooner than later.

IW

[blackhand]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the bird quills used because they were already colored....

[Cody]

I sure would be interested in seeing some info on bird quilling too

[isaac]

Nov 14, 2010 5:29:57 GMT -7 blackhand said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the bird quills used because they were already colored....

According to the reports that I have seen... most of the quills used were either gull or goose and are, in the case of them being used like porky quills to embroider, are only small strips from the sides. In this case (and especially with gull feathers) they are white. Actually, I have been messing with stripping feathers from various types of birds and this is an area of the rachis (technical feather term) that is almost always white.

About choice of bird over porky for color reasons, I have heard that bird quills dyed easier and this is why they were liked, especially for blues.

IW

[Cody]

Are any small birds going to work or just the big ones like geese?How about dye?

[Chuck Burrows]

Norm Feder did a 12 page article on bird quill quillwork in the Summer 1987 issue of American Indian Art magazine, Vol 12 No. 3, There are photos of 3 such knife sheaths in the article. Although this is not a "how to" article it will expose you to enough information to help you make the sheath.

From Wilson's Notes at AMNH pub.s: QUILLWORK Gull wing quills were used to embroider tipi covers, moccasins, belts, leggings, and thongs. However, when these birds became scarce their use was discontinued. In the fall the women collected the feathers on the shores of the northern lakes, or the men on a buffalo hunt would stop to fill their leggings full of the feathers carried in by the waves and deposited on the lake shores.1 Porcupine quills were also used for embroidery but only when bird quills were not obtainable. However, porcupine quillwork2 was believed to have been smoother than bird quillwork. The bird quills were prepared for use by removing the web and the aftershafts of the feathers by drawing the point of an awl down on either side of the quill after the vane had been stripped. The dull underside of the quill was used; the upper glossy portion was discarded. The part of the quill retained was, in turn, separated into two strips, each of which was scraped free of the pith clinging to its inner surface and smoothed by drawing it against a piece of natural brick held under the thumb. Porcupine quill smoothers or pressers of elkhorn were also made and were of the same shape as those made more recently of iron. The shiny outer half of the quill shaft was not a very desirable material for embroidery. It was utilized only when there was a dearth of flat quills. The technique of embroidering with bird and porcupine quills apparently differed somewhat. When bird quills were used the larger or quill end of the stripped piece was the first used, and the work continued downward to the smaller end of the shaft. Buffalo-bird-woman recollected that in her lifetime she had seven buckskin shirts and nine robes, seven embroidered with bird quills and two with porcupine quills. Moccasins, leggings, and belts embroidered with bird quills, all subjected to hard usage, were believed to have been more durable than those decorated with porcupine quills. 'The information here is somewhat vague. It is not at all clear from the recorded statements whether gulls were actually captured for their feathers, as were eagles (Wilson,
1928).
2Cf. Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, pp. 345-347 for the Omaha technique. VOL. 56 WEITZNER: HIDATSA INDIANS The thongs by which bird-bone whistles were hung around the neck by the members of the Crazy Dogs and Dog Imitators societies were whipped with bird quills. The thongs used by the Dog Imitators were made of double-ply rawhide. The decorative quills were held in place by sinew, the ends of which were passed through the two sides at each lap. The Crazy Dogs' thongs, cut from soft-dressed skins, were merely wrapped with quills in such a manner that stitches would be superfluous. Leader, a Hidatsa woman born about 1856, made a pair of quill-embroidered leggings for the Museum collection. Incidentally, she enlarged on the technique. During her lifetime, steel needles always had been used for quill embroidery. In the past, elkhorn or Rocky Mountain sheep horn awls were the only implements available for such use. The end of the sinew used for sewing was moistened, rolled between thumb and fingers, and dried to a hard serviceable point that would readily penetrate the hole made by puncturing the skin with an awl. Formerly, it had been customary to combine porcupine and bird quills with grass roots in a single decorative pattern. Because grass roots were easily damaged they were used only where their natural black color was desired for either black lines or bars. Grass roots and quills were stored in moist earth to render them soft and pliable. Goodbird's wife usually moistened the quills in her mouth. Grass roots when sewed to the skin were pressed flat with the finger nail.

It´s my understanding now that the feathers used for quilling were first stripped down of vanes (razor blade did cleaner job, but that might have been just because of my clumsy hands in simple stripping, which is likely. My stripping usually teared off the vane with part of the glossy surface layer of the quill and ruined the work done before), then the feather quill is split into the back and front half through the vane bases, then the back half is split through the back groove. The same for the front half. The front half is of little lower quality, the two back quarters work better. Sharp edged awl works better then knife.

above is what little info I have and it is all gleaned from the Plains Indian Seminar on Yahoo....
groups.yahoo.com/group/PlainsIndianSeminartwo/?yguid=174734538

They recently had some more info in PDF format but for some reason I couldn't read it?

As for dyes: any natural dyes work as well as the infamous Rit Berry.........