Dig it - 5/22/25

Well, Fellow Seekers, This piece goes back to the days when millions of buffalo roamed the American plains sometime in the mid-19th century, 1850 to 1870. In those days the West was still wild, and the Plains Indians still relied primarily on buffalo for their sustenance. They were a Buffalo People. 

This here thing is a buffalo rawhide container called a parfleche. It is 17” x 30”, so a pretty good size. There are two major books on parfleche, one by Mable Morrow and a more recent book by Gaylord Torrence. Neither seems to focus too much on the meaning of the designs but more on the tribal affiliation of various designs. I believe that at least some of the designs, for instance the one on this Blackfoot parfleche, may relate to or have evolved from the Siberian X-ray tradition, which comes out of a shared heritage. These X-rayed designs appear on a number of Plains tribe women’s robes; for example, Lakota women’s robes, where the viewer is looking at the anatomy of the insides of an animal. This is just a theory. But the strong tradition of Plains rawhide painting must have had an origin, and the designs must have had some vocabulary and meaning. 

Regardless of the veracity of my theory, the decoration of these utilitarian storage containers was certainly beautiful and done with a lot of pride. Adios, Fellow Seekers. Lonesome has to pack up his mule and mosey on down the trail.