Maple leaves in vivid colors and pink-red maple buds span the beaded straps and pouch of this gashkibidaagan, or bandolier bag. Ojibwe floral designs embroidered on rich black velvet draw both parts together. At the bottom of the bag, multicolored tassels unfurl from tiny, beaded tabs. Bags like this one, worn around the shoulders and often given as gifts, communicate both kinship ties and spiritual structures through their beaded designs, situating the wearer in a set of familial and cosmological relationships. Anishinaabe people have made them since the seventeeth century, incorporating European materials and beadwork forms into existing art practices such as quillwork. By telling interlaced symbolic and material stories, Gashkibidaaganag embody syncretic Anishinaabe creativity.

Text written by Lois Taylor Biggs (Cherokee Nation/ White Earth Ojibwe); Rice Curatorial Fellow in Native American Art at the Art Institute of Chicago