Producer unknown to us
Basket satchel
Americas, United States, Great Lakes Region, Minnesota, Nett Lake
Before 1947
Cedar bark, woven
Eva Lips (ethnologist) acquired this item during her exile in the United States from 1934 to 1947.
Purchased by the museum from Elisabeth Malüg in 1990
NAm 4981
This is a woven basket satchel used to store wild rice. It is woven from cedar bark. When empty, the container is shaped like a flat rectangular bag. A thin strip of leather is woven into the bottom edge. The top edge is thickened and crafted so that a cord can be inserted to close the satchel.
Wild rice was one of the main food sources for the Indigenous communities living around the Great Lakes in North America. To harvest wild rice, the seed heads are bent over the hull of the canoe from the inside and then tapped with a wooden mallet so that the rice grains fall into the boat. Some communities, such as the White Earth Nation in Minnesota (Anishinaabe, Chippewa), continue to harvest wild rice in the 21st century as a form of sustainable agriculture.
Ethnologist Eva Lips (1906–1988) acquired this piece during her time in exile in the United States from 1934–1947.
Frank Usbeck