Sioux Beaded Pictorial Tobacco Bag
fourth quarter 19th century

sinew-sewn softly tanned hide beaded using colors of red white-heart, pea green, greasy yellow, dark blue, and white; front of bag depicts a figure surrounded by spirits, pipes, and feathers; verso filled with two rows of horse tracks

overall length 35 inches

The Ghost Dance was, in many ways a nostalgic plea to return to more comprehensible days when the Plains tribes exerted control over their own lives instead of waiting for a politically appointed bureaucrats to tell them what church to attend and when to line up for food.  They were being forced to move in a direction they did not want to go, and the agents were deliberately destroying the old power structures on the reservation.  The Ghost Dance was one response to this dilemma.  Much of the regalia harkened back to pre-reservation times in design and pattern as a symbolic rejection of the white man's ways.

This pipe bag... is a typical Sioux example of Ghost Dance paraphernalia... The top of the bag indicates the craze for nostalgia in their period.  It depicts beaded horse tracks, usually symbolizing horses taken in raids against enemies.  The beaded pipes... stand for war parties led.  The "X" patterns represent coups counted or scalps taken, the feathers denote war honors, and the heads symbolize enemies killed, or "couped" (Hanson 1994: plate 122). 

Published:
Spirits in the Art (Hanson 1994: 120, plate 122)