QBO received this elegant little bag from a recent consignment client. If you just saw it lying out on a table, you’d think it was a glove. This style of native American carrying pouch is properly called a “Fire Bag”, but due to their long, dangling ‘legs’, they are also called “Many Leg Bags” and have become popularly known as “Octopus Bags”. Today they are widespread across many regions and tribes but are especially associated with the Northwest Coast Tlingit.
Based on earlier Algonquian carrying pouches made of whole animal furs tanned with the legs on, Octopus Bags are a product of Native American artists incorporating new Canadian, American, and Russian trade goods in the mid-1800s. These same ‘trade’ materials are used in this modern bag: wool and cotton cloth, glass seed beads, ribbon, and cotton thread.
Classic Octopus Bags come in different solid colors, but each has 4 ‘legs’ ending in beaded tassels. The primary design often depicts flowers, or in the coastal regions of Canada and the U.S., seaweed. The floral designs are the influence of the tribes who originated the cloth Octopus Bag in the 1850s, the Cree and Métis in the Lake Winnipeg and James Bay regions of Canada; these Athabascan-language peoples were among the first to create floral beadwork using trade beads. By the 1860s the Octopus Bag had spread to Northwest Coast tribes such as the Tlingit, some Salish-speaking tribes and up to the Montagnais and other tribes in the Eastern subarctic of Alaska. By the 1900s sub-arctic artisans developed non-floral styles as well.
Aleuts are indigenous to the southwestern tip of the Alaska Peninsula and the string of Aleutian Islands extending out into the Pacific and the Bering Sea. As the islands were colonized in the 19th century by fur trappers and others, many Aleuts were killed by the invaders or the infectious diseases they carried, to which the Aleuts had no immunity. Aleut territory was divided up between Russia and the United States and remains so today. While there are 13 recognized Aleut tribes in Alaska, the Aleuts in Russia were not officially recognized by Russian authorities until 2000. Counting people on both sides of the border, around 15,000 claim Aleut ancestry today. This particular bag was made with meticulous care by Aleut artist Kathy Doyle.
The outer black wool layer was beaded first so none of the stitching would pierce the smooth black cotton lining. Worn hanging against the body or tucked into a sash, the bag is only decorated on the front because friction would damage beading on the back. The seed beads, only slightly larger than the poppy seeds on your morning bagel, are individually stitched down to make green vines and tiny, yellow-centered blue flowers (Forget-me-nots?). Each flower is only 6 beads – 5 blue petals and a yellow center. Front and back wool pieces were cut and lined in cotton individually before being joined together with tiny edge stitches, with the ribbon carrying straps inserted between the layers. This leaves no raw edges exposed, making the bag resistant to raveling. It’s a lot of trouble for something that’s purpose was primarily functional.
This is because traditionally these exquisite pouches were made by women for their husbands, often as a wedding gift, to carry flint and tinder for starting campfires while out hunting (thus the earlier name Fire Bag). They might also hold ritual smoking tobacco and pipe. It’s a small, personal case made to carry the small personal items that a man would need with him every day, especially when away from home. I can’t think of a more loving gift, can you?
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!