Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: I bought this piece back in about 1985 in Athens, Georgia, at a thrift shop.

APPRAISER: Do you know where it's from?

GUEST: No-- I don't know anything about who made it or, you know, what part of the country, or anything.

APPRAISER: It's from the Great Lakes area.

It's made by the Chippewa Indians.

In Canada, they're referred to as the Ojibwe, and they refer to themselves as the Anishinaabe, the people who were the original ones of that area.

It's one of the largest tribes in North America and Canada.

This is called a bandolier bag, made by a woman.

A man would wear this across his shoulder, along his side.

Anybody who saw that man wearing this would instantly know his tribal affiliation.

And the man would put all sorts of things in the pouch: fire-making materials, maybe potions to keep him safe.

The woman who made this had a, a certain brilliance for design.

The color combinations are exceptional.

Do you know where the beads are from?

GUEST: No.

APPRAISER: Venice, Italy.

GUEST: Are you serious?

(chuckling) APPRAISER: And all of these cloths were imported from Europe.

You have all this white background in what's called lane stitch, and they're just laying down horizontal lines.

But notice the pattern on the flowers.

It's all what's called contour beading.

This is not the first bandolier bag that she made.

GUEST: Yeah?

APPRAISER: This is special.

We can date this in a variety of ways.

The beads, particularly these clear beads, came into, uh, the Great Lakes region around 1880, 1890.

The floral arrangements have developed from very abstract forms to figurative forms, and that, too, helps date it.

Maybe right around 1880, 1890.

These geometric patterns going up and down the sides and across the top, those are called patterns of power.

And in abstract form, they replicate the footprints or patterns of an otter trail.

Otters are very special creatures, because they inhabit two domains, both the underwater world and the land world, and that was considered quite special.

So this is a protective design, empowering the person who's wearing this.

And then all of these floral elements, they're not just decorative flowers, they're representations of herbal healing power.

So there's a lot of symbolism going on here.

This bandolier was longer at one time, and the lady reduced the size by maybe eight or ten inches.

At some point, it got passed on, perhaps to a smaller person.

And it, that kind of suggests how much it was a treasured object.

It wasn't going to be discarded.

It wasn't going to be packed away.

Do you recall what you paid for it?

GUEST: I think I paid about $30.

APPRAISER: I think on a retail basis today, this would sell for about $1,800.

GUEST: Okay, okay.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: Thank you!

APPRAISER: And, and if you were insuring it, maybe about $2,400.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: I love it.

GUEST: Oh, I do, too-- thank you very much.

(chuckles)