Firebag c. 1830

This is a Firebag, made by the Nēhiyawak, or Cree, peoples of North America. The bag is made of cloth and decorated with beads, quillwork and tassels. Bags like this, made during the 19th century, were used to carry sacred items such as tobacco and ceremonial pipes, and were often given as gifts to cement social bonds. The designs take root in the natural world, rendered in abstract geometric forms. The Cree were among the first Indigenous peoples to encounter European colonizers, and their history is one of complex negotiation with colonial power. This bag can tell us something about the visual strategies employed by Indigenous artists to assert their cultural identity, even as their traditional ways of life came under pressure. As historians, we can use museum collections, archives, and oral histories to understand the social and political context in which objects like this were made, reminding us that works of art are always shaped by the world around them.