A NATIVE AMERICAN REPRESENTATIONAL CLOTH, POSSIBLY DEPICTING THE WINTER COUNT

This lot shows a specific arrangement of pictorial symbols which could be read as a ‘Winter Count’. These are associated with the Native Americans of North America, specifically the Blackfeet, Mandan, Kiowa, Lakota, and other Plains tribes, who recorded special events representing the years.  There is some similarity to the example offered here, which predominately depicts a variety of birds intermingled with other symbols, possibly representative of the sun and moon.

Winter Counts were typically recorded on bison hide. Interestingly, the material used here is bark, which has been flatten and formed through a skilled process of soaking and beating. Bark like this is used through a number of Pacific cultures and known as tapa. This cloth making process and cedar bark weaving were particular to the Pacific NorthWest tribes of the Karuk and Hupa, were skilled women still make bark cloth today which is then decorated using vegetable pigments. Birch bark is much tougher material and used by the tribes of the Eastern Woodlands area, some of whom have made canoes for 1300 years using birch bark. 

Condition Report:

Mounted on to a board backing, within a metal frame. 

It is believed that the material used is a fibrous bark, and the there is variation in its consistency with thinner patches and areas where the material is a little less dense. There are some pigment bothers and other possible smudges. 

It has not been possible to examine this outside of the frame.