Tobacco Pouch

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Culture Plains

Title Tobacco Pouch

Date Late 19th–early 20th century

Medium Leather, porcupine quills, beads, feathers, metal, and and fiber

Dimensions Object: 35 3/8 × 6 5/8 in. (89.9 × 16.8 cm)
Overall: 35 3/8 x 6 5/8 in. (89.9 x 16.8 cm)

Credit Line Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University

Accession Number 63.35

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About this Work

Tobacco pouches were used historically by a number of Native American groups among the Plains. Owned by men, such pouches would have held their pipe, tobacco, and other items necessary for the smoking of tobacco. While tobacco pouches were quite common, Native communities had their own styles of decoration that can be used to identify where the pouch was made. Quillwork and after contact with Europeans beadwork, were common decorating techniques. The beadwork can be geometric or figurative, with geometric designs, like those seen here, favored among the peoples of the Great Plains, such as the Lakota.

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Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

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"Tobacco Pouch | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2024. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=63.35