An Early Cheyenne Beaded Hide Tobacco Bag

Eastern Louisiana Collection

Robert Vandenberg, Corrales, New Mexico

Ted Trotta, Shrub Oak, New York

Alex Acevedo, New York, New York

Acquired from Jim Hart, Cherry Hill, New Jersey

The Cincinnati Art Museum: “A Window on the Past,” October 18, 2002 – March 30, 2003

John W. Painter, American Indian Artifacts: The John Painter Collection, 1991, p. 72, no. 82, illustrated

John W. Painter, A Window on the Past: Early Native American Dress from the John Painter Collection, 2002, Cincinnati Art Museum, p. 36, no. 28, illustrated

For related examples please see: Ted J. Brasser, “Bo’Jou, Neejee!”: Profiles of Canadian Indian Art, 1976, p. 152, no. 153. Identified as Blackfoot, early 19^th century; Ralph T. Coe, Sacred Circles: Two Thousand Years of North American Indian Art, 1977, p. 187, no. 501, Crow or Blackfoot tobacco pouch, before 1850; no. 502, Two Cheyenne Pipebags, before 1850; No. 503, Plains pipe bag, ca. 1835.

Also see Sotheby’s New York, May 2006, Lot 182.

Pre-1850s pony beaded materials are known for their rarity. A number of factors, including changes in the availability of materials, style changes, and the collecting habits of Euro-Americans, combined to create this result.  Prior to 1850 there was little attempt to collect or preserve items of Native culture. As a result, items decorated with pony beads, which began to fall out of fashion around 1845 – 50 in the Northern Plains and Upper Missouri, have become exceedingly scarce, especially in the United States. Most of the early collecting in the United States was done by European artists, explorers and travelers, and so the majority of the material which was collected went to European museums.

Pony beads first became available through trade and began to be used around 1780. At this time they were not widely available, and were often used in combination with quillwork. By 1800 they were more available, and continued as a common decorative item until around 1840. Pony beads are large, irregular, monochrome and opaque china beads, measuring about one-eighth inch (or from 3-4 mm) in diameter, which were produced in Venice. Although they were earlier called pound beads, big beads or even bad beads, and were shipped by whatever conveyance was most appropriate to the territory, the term pony beads has stuck ever since it was first coined in 1929. Orchard was the first to use the term, stating that it “derived from the fact that ‘pony traders,’ or traveling traders with pack animals were said to have introduced that variety.”[1] In addition to white, early pony beads were also available in dark blue, light and dark red, black and a deep goldenrod yellow.

Despite the availability of beads in a wider range of colors and sizes, Northern Plains and Upper Missouri tribes preferred a more limited palette than that of the Central and Southern Plains tribes. An early 1840s inventory of trade items destined for Lakota tribes on the North Platte listed only pony beads in three colors…probably white, blue and black. Beads shipped that same year to tribes on the South Platte included only small beads in nine different colors. Pony beads remained popular among some tribes until the 20^th century.

By 1840, the popularity of smaller embroidery beads began to increase on the Northern Plains, and by 1850 the majority of beadwork was done in the smaller seed beads.