Beaded Belt

Anishinaabe (Ojibwe / Chippewa)
Great Lakes Woodlands
Woodlands

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late 19th century

Cotton cloth, glass beads, metal beads, silk, and thread

Overall: 4 13/16 × 37 5/8 in. (12.2 × 95.5 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Richard Brisson

985.35.26452

Geography

Place Made: United States, North America

Period

19th century

Object Name

Clothing: Accessory

Research Area

Native American

Native American: Woodlands

On view

Label

Missionaries first introduced European-style flower imagery to Native women in the 1600s, who adapted Euro-American realism into their beadwork. For colonizers, this signaled Indigenous conversion, whereas Anishinaabe women used flowers to embed important cultural messages within their works. Flowers could lead to roots, bark, seeds, or fruits that could nourish the body as food or medicine. Even under devastating circumstances, floral designs preserved traditions that remained hidden from European and American colonizers.

From the 2024 exhibition Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Exhibition History

Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 12 - late 2025.

Provenance

"Mohawk Chief"; collected by Richard Brisson, Grafton, New Hampshire, 1960's; given to present collection, 1985.

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