Lisette Harmon and Her Hunting Bag: A Jigsaw Puzzle in Aboriginal Material Culture and Identity ROLAND BOHR University of Winnipeg In the fall of 2008, my colleague Anne Lindsay and I conducted research into Aboriginal people’s use of natural dyes in coloring porcupine quills. Based on dye recipes recorded by fur traders in the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries, we dyed porcupine quills in several different colors to see whether these recipes would yield results similar to dyed quills found in original pieces of Aboriginal quillwork from that time period. One of the more detailed sources of information on Aboriginal use of natural dye- stuffs was the journal of North West Company fur trader and explorer Daniel Williams Harmon, who recorded information on the use of natural dyes in quillwork that likely came from his wife Lisette Duval/Laval, who was of Aboriginal descent and who strongly identi¿ed with a Cree cultural background.1 After the completion of our dye experiments, I worked the quills into ¿nished pieces to see how they would stand up to actual use and how this would affect their colors. Several colleagues pointed out that the Bennington Museum in Ben- nington, Vermont holds an early nineteenth-century quill-embroidered hunt- ing bag, attributed to Lisette Duval. The bag is beautifully worked in quills that, according to the bag’s provenance, were dyed by the maker. It is unusual to be able to connect an artifact like this with particular details about its possible construction, but Daniel Harmon’s own journal includes infor- mation about dyeing that was most probably provided by his wife Lisette Duval/Laval Harmon. Surviving Aboriginal artifacts that can be attributed 1. Lisette’s family name is variously rendered as Duval, or Laval. Daniel Harmon stated that Lisette’s father was a “Canadian.” He may have been a Métis-employee of the North West Company. Harmon described her mother as a Snare Indian from “about the Rocky Mountains.” Harmon also indicated that Lisette spoke Cree. 20 SP_PAC41_02_020-039.indd 20 10/1/13 8:15 AM LISETTE HARMON AND HER HUNTING BAG 21 Figure 1. Fork handle wrapped with plaited quillwork. Photo by Roland Bohr. to speci¿c individuals are rare and provide an important source of infor- mation on Aboriginal and fur trade history from an individual’s perspec- tive. Furthermore, museum records indicate that this bag may have been manufactured around 1810, which would make it one of the earliest and best-documented bags of this kind, made by a person of mixed Aboriginal and European descent.2 When we ¿rst saw the pictures our colleagues had taken of this bag, we noticed that the quill colors, at least in the image, were quite similar to those that we had achieved in our dye experiments. Intrigued by this, I decided to examine more closely questions on provenance and use of this bag, based on fur trade and related records, and to compare it to similar artifacts, most often found in Woodland and/or Subarctic cultures, such as the central Cree, Ojibwa, and Chipweyan. The Bennington bag is made from Native-tanned leather and is roughly rectangular, with the four corners rounded off. The front of the bag is deco- rated with two wide horizontal panels of very ¿ne and intricately worked loom-woven quillwork in geometric designs in orange-red and blue against a white or ivory background. Quill-wrapped fringes, ending in metal cones 2. Sherry Farrell-Racette, e-mail from June 23, 2009: “It’s a bit hard to tell from the photograph. The colors look quite faded. I am thinking mostly Cree/Métis inÀuences— the motifs are looking pretty familiar. As far as I know Harmon was not mixed and not Catholic. However, as women tend to work in mentoring groups, she no doubt was part of a woman’s circle unless her father was an itinerant worker. I’m hoping to include it in my manuscript as it would be (I think) the oldest documented work by a Métis woman. .” SP_PAC41_02_020-039.indd 21 10/1/13 8:15 AM 22 ROLAND BOHR Figure 2. Quilled bag attributed to Lisette Duval/Harmon. with textile or hair tassels dyed a deep burgundy red, extend from the bottom of each panel. The top section of the bag, above the ¿rst woven quillwork panel has Àat quillwork, directly sewn onto the leather of the bag in geometric and stylized Àoral patterns. A narrow band of light blue or green folded quillwork, directly sewn to the leather runs along the outer edge of the bag. The bag is attached to a wide carrying strap at the upper back. This strap or bandolier is embroidered with colorful quillwork in curvilinear patterns of “heart” and “apple” shapes, small rosettes, and double-curve motives. Along the outer margins of the strap run bands of light-colored quillwork, applied in a technique known as “rick-rack.”3 Both the strap’s and the bag’s edges are ¿nished with a narrow band of plaited quillwork.4 Embroidery similar to that on the Bennington bag appeared on several other bags dating from as early as the 1760s to possibly the 1860s. These bags are either rectangular or are shaped like an oversized mitten with a 3. Hensler (1989:30–31). 4. Bennington Museum, Bennington, Vermont, A-4501. SP_PAC41_02_020-039.indd 22 10/1/13 8:15 AM LISETTE HARMON AND HER HUNTING BAG 23 straight top and a rounded or oval bottom. The earliest bag of this type that I could ¿nd was supposedly collected by George Holt between 1768 and 1771, while in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). George Holt served with the HBC from 1768 until at least 1782, ¿rst as a sailor and then eventually he was promoted to sloop master.5 In a letter to Splendid Heritage, Aboriginal art historian Ted Brasser described this bag as a miniature of the shot pouches worn by Cree hunters.6 Figure 3. Quilled bag collected by HBC mariner George Holt, 1768-1771.7 5. Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, biographical sheets, http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/biographical/h/holt_george.pdf (accessed Dec. 8, 2009). 6. http://www.splendidheritage.com/Notes/NC0047.pdf (accesssed Dec. 8, 2009). 7. Splendid Heritage, Warnock Collection, Item Number: WC8608007. Category: Bag–Pouch. Dimensions: Height 5.5 inches 14 cm. Collected by George Holt between 1768 and 1771 while employed by the Hudson Bay Company. Presented to Dr. Andrew Gifford in 1775, then donated to a Baptist Academy in Bristol, England. Image taken from: http://www.splendidheritage.com/nindex.html. (accessed December 2009). SP_PAC41_02_020-039.indd 23 10/1/13 8:15 AM 24 ROLAND BOHR This bag has two relatively narrow bands of woven quillwork with quill-wrapped fringe ending in red-dyed hair or textile ¿ber tassels at the bottom of each quill panel. It is decorated with woven quillwork on both sides, front and back. The British Museum holds several similar bags made from Native-tanned hide or fur. Most of these bags have similar panels of woven quillwork in geometric designs. In most cases, there is little to no provenance information, but one of these bags can be documented as having come to the British Museum from the estate of the banker and ethnographer, Henry Christie (1810–1865). Because of the lack of provenance information and information on dates of collection, it is dif¿cult to establish a chronological typology for these bags. However, if a development from simpler to more complex pat- terns can be assumed (which may not necessarily be correct), it would Figure 4. Shot pouch with wide panel of woven quillwork.8 8. Pouch, British Museum, Registration Number: Am1986, 18.17. Image from: http://www.britishmuseum.org/default.aspx. Shot pouch, of unsmoked moosekin [?]. Dimensions: Height: 23 centimeters; Width: 14.5 centimeters. Purchased from Royal Institution of Cornwall. SP_PAC41_02_020-039.indd 24 10/1/13 8:15 AM LISETTE HARMON AND HER HUNTING BAG 25 Figure 5. Comparison of pouches with wide panels of woven quillwork. A) British Museum.9 b) Bennington Museum. c) McCord Museum.10 appear as if the more complex designs on the Bennington bag originated in simpler forms found on other bags, along with a shift from narrow loom- woven quillwork bands to the wider type found on the Bennington bag. The British Museum holds at least two pouches with a single but very wide band of woven quillwork. Both have little to no provenance information. Rectangular bags with a broad carrying strap or bandolier have been documented from later periods. In the mid-1980s, Andrew Hunter Whit- eford examined heavily-beaded bandolier bags from the Great Lakes area, 9. Buckskin pouch with quillwork, British Museum, Registration Number: Am1970, 09.1. Dimensions: Height: 26 centimeters; Width: 16.5 centimeters. Curator’s comments: Formerly the property of the donor’s great uncle who was Col. Gordon in China and who travelled extensively. Donated by Miss C. R. Lyster, who donated a collection of Native American items to the Museum in 1970. Image from: http://www.britishmuseum. org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx. 10. Pouch, Anonymous, ninteeenth century. Elk hide, cotton cloth, porcupine quills, hair, vegetable ¿bre, sinew, cotton thread, pigment, 14.2 î 25.5 cm. Gift of The Natural History Society of Montreal. M5053. Image from: http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/ collection/artifacts/M5053/. SP_PAC41_02_020-039.indd 25 10/1/13 8:15 AM 26 ROLAND BOHR mostly dating to the second half of the nineteenth century.