Apache Painted Hide Medicine Pouch

painted with a human figure, wearing a fringed shirt, with splayed limbs, an unidentified implement in the left hand, surmounting a field of checkered panels and vertical zigzag bands, similar geometric details on the reverse, three cut tabs, also painted, interspersed with the lower fringe, a drawstring through the opening.

Collected by Hugh Sparks (1874-1951), who fought in the Spanish American War, was First Lieutenant 31st Infantry, based in Kentucky, and who spent time in the White Mountain Apache Reservation area.

For a related example and discussion of Apache ceremonial articles see A Persistent Vision, Richard Conn, 1986, p. 225, pl. 285: "The Western Apache groups decorated leather ceremonial articles with line paintings of supernatural beings, mythological figures, and tribal heroes."