AFA 22nd Anniversary

22nd Anniversary 78 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Pouch, Northeastern Native artist, name once known, Western Mass. late 1600s to mid-1700s. Deerskin, porcupine quills, porcelain beads, animal hair, and metal, 8 x 7 inches. Gift of Edward S. Moseley, 1979 (E28561). Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum. Photo by Kathy Tarantola. This elegant draw-string pouch—likely worn in the belt of the artist’s husband for carrying tobacco—was transformed into a portable work of art, and a profound container of her worldview. Among Native cultures of the Northeast, the earthly cosmos is inhabited by humans, animals, and supernatural beings. Here, benevolent and malevolent forces are in a constant state of flux. Humans and animals are kindred spirits, and animals are honored for their spiritual powers. Thus, only with its consent and in times of need can a hunter take the life of an animal, appeasing its spirit with a prayer offering of tobacco. This deerskin pouch can be understood as a reverent symbol of the hunted: the pull ties possibly becoming legs and decorative perforated leather tabs suggesting ears or beaver tails. Symbolizing the earthly axis through which humans and spirits could communicate, the equal-armed cross motif finds visual and ideological affinity with the cascading delicate double-curved motifs on the pouch’s obverse. In the Northeast, double-curves signify balance—a concept further articulated in the double-sided nature of the pouch itself. Emblematic of the vital confluence between humans and animals, this pouch ensured the survival of the artist’s family and community through the maintenance of cosmological equilibrium. Likely Pawtucket band of Massachusett artist, name once known, Naumkeag (now Salem, Mass.), 1500s. Basalt. H.4¾, W. 2½, D. 5 in. Gift of Miss Bessie Eaton, 1898 (E50296). Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum. Photo by Jeffrey Dykes and Mark Sexton. (The Massachusett are the Indigenous Peoples from whom the state of Massachusetts took its name.) An Indigenous artist from the area around current-day Salem, Massachusetts, likely created this stylized sculpture of a black bear. The object can be seen as a representation of the interconnectedness between humans and the natural world and as an expression of a strong relationship with the land. This bear may have been created just decades before European settlers arrived in 1626 in the place we now call Salem and displaced the Pawtucket peoples already living there.