Basswood fiber bag, Ojibwe, northern Wisconsin, nineteenth century

This storage bag was created with a hand-weaving technique known as finger-twining. The earliest finger-twined bags made by Great Lakes Indian women were created with locally available materials such as basswood, nettle fibers and buffalo hair.

This bag was collected in northern Wisconsin between 1914 and 1952 by H. L. Mumm and acquired by the Wisconsin Historical Society in 1954. The image is part of the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database, a digital archive of Wisconsin objects. For more information, see content.wisconsinhistory.org/u?/wda,2187