Minneapolis/St. Paul Chapter Event

MSP Chapter The Art of the Ojibwe Bandolier Bag

Thursday, March 18, 2021, 7‑8:30pm CDT
Location: Zoom
Contact: Barbara O'Sullivan
Email: barbara.osullivan@hotmail.com

Please join Marcia G. Anderson for a presentation on bandolier bags based on her years of research for her book A Bag Worth a Pony:  The Art of the Ojibwe Bandolier Bag.   Marcia will explain the history, forms, structure, and motifs of the bags and a bag’s makeup and meaning. She will share personal insights on the master beadworkers from Minnesota's Indian reservations.  This lecture will celebrate and illuminate the spectacular beaded bags made by the Ojibwe of Minnesota.
 
Bandolier bags, or gashkibidaaganag—the large, heavily beaded shoulder bags made and worn by several North American Indian tribes around the Great Lakes—are prized cultural icons here and around the world. From the 1870s to the present day, Ojibwe beadartists of Minnesota have been especially well known for their lively, creative designs. Neighboring Dakota people would trade a pony for a beautiful beaded bag.
 
Over the years, non-Indian collectors and ethnographers, struck by the bags’ cultural significance and visual appeal, bought them up. Today, there are hundreds of bags in museums around the world, but not so many in the hands of community members. Marcia will share what she learned from the talented bead artists who keep the form alive, from historical records, and from the bags themselves. 
  
Marcia is an Independent Curator, Consultant and Lecturer.  She worked for over 30 years at the Minnesota Historical Society where she managed and developed the three-dimensional collections.