Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

That's my grandfather, and he was in New York and traveled to the Indian territory in Kansas and grew up there as a cowboy. That's how he came to collect some of the Indian things.

APPRAISER

It's actually a tobacco bag. In the world of Plains beadwork, it's one of the Cadillacs. It's a Cheyenne tobacco bag.

GUEST

Ah.

APPRAISER

But what's really fascinating about this group is this document here. And it's a pass for your grandfather to enter the reservation on private business. These two small objects, they are called fetishes. And actually inside each one of those is the umbilical cord of the child.

GUEST

Wow!

APPRAISER

And when a mother had a baby, she would make this little pouch and put the umbilical cord inside, but it would be something that that man would carry with him his whole life. The value of the fetishes, probably in the neighborhood of $800 to $1,200 apiece. We would expect to sell this tobacco bag for in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $25,000.

Ooh. (chuckling)

That's very much.