572.05 FA N.S. no. 14-20 1990-93 r/ Anthropology SfEW SERIES, NO. 17 The Isaac Cowie Collection of Plains Cree Material Culture from Central Alberta James W. VanStone September 30, 1991 Publication 1427 PUBLISHED BY FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Information for Tontributors to Field iana (J€neral: fwiaiarij is a tor licicJ Museum staff members, and a.s^ « prinianij' journal research ugh manuscripts from nonaffiliated authors may be considered as space permits. The Journal c. of $65.00 or fraction thereof. rgc per printed page Payment of at least 50% of pag« a -d clwrges qualifies processing, which reduces the publication time. 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VanStone Curator, North American Archaeology and Ethnology Department ofAnthropology Field Museum of Natural History Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496 Accepted April 3, 1991 Published September 30, 1991 Publication 1427 PUBLISHED BY HELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY © 1 99 1 Field Museum of Natural History Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-72796 ISSN 0071-4739 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Table of Contents List of Illustrations Abstract 1 1 . Map of central and southern Alberta ... 2 1 I. Introduction 1 2. Plains Cree tipi on exhibit at the Field The Plains Cree 1 Columbian Museum 22 Isaac Cowie, Collector for the World's 3. Plains Cree tipi on exhibit at the Field Columbian Exposition 2 Columbian Museum 23 II. The Collection 3 4. Tipi cover pattern 24 Shelter 3 5. Tipi cover decoration 24 Subsistence 4 6. Back wall 25 Transportation 6 7. Back wall 25 Household Equipment 8 8. Quiver, bow, and bow cover 26 Clothing 9 9. Arrows 27 Men's Clothing 9 10. Snowshoes, snares, knife sheath, hoof rat- Women's Clothing 10 tles 28 Children's Clothing 11 1 1. Model fish trap 29 Personal Adornment 11 12. Snowshoes 30 1 3. Ceremonial and Medicinal Equipment . 12 Woman's saddle 31 Warfare 13 14. Parfleches 32 Games 14 1 5. Loading platform 33 III. Conclusions 15 16. Dog travois 33 Acknowledgments 17 1 7. Toboggan 34 Literature Cited 17 18. Toboggan 35 Appendix 19 1 9. Dog harness 35 20. Backrest 36 2 1 . Detail of hare skin blanket weaving .... 37 22. Spoons, pothook, poker, stone club .... 38 23. Fan, moccasins, sinew and bodkin, pro- vision bag 39 24. Man's shirt (front) 40 25. Man's shirt (back) 41 26. Man's "medicine shirt" 42 27. Man's buffalo skin robe 43 28. Moccasins, winter hat 44 29. Mittens 45 30. Armband, garters, children's hoods 46 3 1 . Woman's dress, sleeves, leggings 47 32. Women's hoods 48 33. Woman's buffalo skin robe 49 34. Breast ornament, "scarifying flints," steel coil, necklace 50 35. Medicine bags 51 36. "Feather head ornament," double ball, lancet, top, horn cup, pipe, stick game . 52 37. Pipestem, racket or lacrosse sticks 53 38. "War shirt" (front) 54 39. "War shirt" (back) 54 40. "War leggings" 55 41. War club, "war cap," drum 56 m The Isaac Cowie Collection of Plains Cree Material Culture from Central Alberta James W. VanStone Abstract The collections of the Field Museum of Natural History contain 1 10 ethnographic objects collected among the Plains Cree ofcentral Alberta in 1 892 for the World's Columbian Exposition by Isaac Cowie, a retired Hudson's Bay Company trader living in Edmonton. The artifacts in this collection are described and illustrated. For comparative purposes, information is included from previous studies of the Plains Cree, notably those of Mandelbaum (1940, 1979). I. Introduction The historic westward movement of the Cree began when they obtained firearms from the Hud- The Plains Cree son's Bay Company after 1670. With their allies, the Assiniboine, the Cree moved rapidly in a The Algonkian-speaking Cree Indians are a northwesterly direction along the prairie and park- widespread f)opulation extending from Hudson land river systems, assuming the role of middle- Bay to the Rocky Mountains. Archaeological re- men in the fur trade between the posts on Hudson search indicates that there were ancestral Cree in Bay and the western tribes. By 1765, Cree occu- northwestern Manitoba by a.d. 900 and in north- pied the northern fringes of the parkland in eastern em Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba by a.d. Alberta (Ray, 1974, p. 23, fig. 9; Milloy, 1988, pp. 1500 (Wright, 1971, p. 3; Smith, 1981, pp. 257- xiv-xv). 258). Most of the Plains Cree probably descended Cree expansion to the northwest began to de- from the early western Woods Cree who had pen- cline in the late 18th century and had virtually etrated the regions north of the North Saskatch- stopped by 1784, the year a smallpox epidemic ewan River centuries before the coming of the fur weakened them as a military power. Abandoning trade. The spread of the horse on the northern the northern limits of their territory, which they prairies must have provided a strong incentive to had taken from the Chipewyan, they moved south- develop a more exclusive dependence on the buf- ward into the grasslands and parklands south of falo herds.