Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Ontario

Note:

From the time of the earliest written accounts of the Mi’kmaq, their exceptional quillwork was noted. (1) Made from perishable organic material, the earliest known Mi’kmaq use of quillwork is unknown, but by the turn of the 19th century it was a well-developed artform.

The box is inscribed on the inside of the lid in pen and ink with two dates, 1867 and 1887. It is probable that it is the first date which most closely coincides with the box’s date of manufacture, a fact testified to both by the exceptional fineness and uniformity of the quillwork typical of the earlier date, but also by the use of vivid dye. Strong black and brilliant blue colouration present in some of the quills is typical of dyes in use between 1860-1865. (2)

Motifs embellishing the box include a chevron design said to reference the fir-tree, a symbol of “venerable age and strength;” also present is a drawn apart X design, the so called V-insertion pattern which was documented in W.D. Wallis 1955 publication The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada as possibly being associated with a Cape Breton Mi’kmaq band. (3)

(1) Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Micmac Quillwork: Micmac Indian Techniques of Porcupine Quill Decoration: 1600-1950 (Halifax: The Nova Scotia Museum, 1982), 5.
(2) Whitehead, Micmac Quillwork, unpaged section, pl. 18.
(3) Ibid, 146, 147.