Art

Dream Catcher

Dream Catchers are a Native American tradition and were first used by the Ojibwe (Chippewa) tribes. Long ago in the ancient world of the Ojibwe Nation, the Clans were all located in one general area of that place known as Turtle Island. This is the way that the old Ojibwe storytellers say how Asibikaashi (Spider Woman) helped Wanabozhoo bring giizis (sun) back to the people. To this day, Asibikaashi will build her special lodge before dawn. If you are awake at dawn, as you should be, look for her lodge;and you will see this miracle of how she captured the sunrise as the light sparkles on the dew which is gathered there...

Beadwork

Beadwork is an art form that many Indians practice today. Most finished beadwork is given to friends and family as gifts, but a lot is sold at pow wows. Beadwork now mostly consists of seed beads. There are many different kinds of beadwork and styles. Northern Indians’ work has floral patterns...

Quillwork

Quillwork-embroidery with porcupine quills-is an art found only in North America and was part of the traditional decorative repertoire of Great Lakes Indian women. Dyed porcupine quills were sewn with sinew onto deerskin clothing, knife sheaths, and medicine bags. Quills were also woven on looms to make belts, baskets, tumplines, and decorative strips that were later applied to clothing. Pipestems were also wrapped or bound with quillwork. Porcupine quills were also stitched on birchbark boxes in geometric and floral designs. Traditionally, quills were dyed with native vegetable dyes, but following contact with Europeans, quills could be dyed by boiling them with non-colorfast cloth, or in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with commercial dyes...

Gathering Clay

Objects created out of clay today, is considered art to society. But Native Americans would view it as a source for tools that were necessary prior to our era.

When gathering the clay, walk down the beach, find a stream flowing into a lake, and when you feel the sand starting to sink, it might be clay. It is clay when the water turns a brown-ish red-ish fog. Stream beds just before it enters the lake and after it enters the lake, are a few places where you can find the most purest clay....