Bandolier bag (Lenni Lenape)

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Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:09] We’re in the Newark Museum, looking at a shoulder bag by a Delaware artist. It was made about 1840-1860 in either Kansas or Oklahoma, but what’s interesting is that the Delaware were originally an East Coast nation.

Dr. Adriana Greci Green: [0:18] Their original territory is up along the Hudson and down the Delaware River, so here New Jersey is at the core of their traditional territory.

Dr. Zucker: [0:32] The Delaware were one of the Native American groups in North America that were in first contact with Europeans, but this bag dates to centuries later.

Dr. Greci Green: [0:36] The Delaware get pushed out of the eastern seaboard early on in the 17th century. By the period of the American Revolution, they are primarily in western Pennsylvania, the Ohio River Valley, and eventually there’s a treaty that provides for a reservation in Kansas, but they also end up in Oklahoma.

[0:58] Delaware is a colonial term, really, [from] a governor of the territory attached to the Lenape after colonization.

Dr. Zucker: [1:05] We’re seeing a type of bag that is often referred to as a bandolier bag, and this is a type of object that is made by more than one nation.

Dr. Greci Green: [1:13] The bandolier bag, also known as a shoulder bag, is common among Anishinaabe, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, and also Delaware, Miami, Shawnee. It’s a common genre early on in the 18th century; an earlier style would have been made with quillwork on black buckskin.

[1:32] The basic structure is the same. They’re made out of cloth, the strap in the back of the bag and sometimes the inside of the bag are lined with beautiful printed cotton cloth, usually referred to as a calico, coming from either England or even India originally. Part of that global exchange that really has expression in the 18th century.

[1:51] The bag is constructed in layers. The beadwork is often done on its own backing of a trade cloth and then there is the calico backing behind it that is a decorative element.

Dr. Zucker: [2:06] It’s no surprise to me that this was a popular type of bag because they are spectacular. The bag in front of us is exceptionally beautiful, with incredibly fine beadwork.

Dr. Greci Green: [2:12] On the front, mostly what we see is the very bold beadwork.

Dr. Zucker: [2:17] The motifs are bold, but organic. There’s also a real geometry to them.

Dr. Greci Green: [2:22] And so there’s this whole aesthetic that has to do with dualities, of upper worlds and lower worlds and other aspects that we may not know about, but that really are seen through this aesthetic display with negative and positive space. And so every element is really thought through with these configurations in mind.

Dr. Zucker: [2:46] I think it’s really important to remember that here in the gallery we’re not seeing the bag as it was intended to be seen. This is meant to be worn. It’s meant to move through space, and the conical tinklers would have produced a sound.

[2:54] There are bells at the end of the tassels, and so this would have moved with its wearer, and it would have made sound. It would have reflected light differently. It’s worth remembering that while the bags were made by women, they were intended to be worn by men.

Dr. Greci Green: [3:08] Like most artwork in Native America, it was made by women.

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Delaware bandolier bag in “Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collection of the National Museum of the American Indian”

The Bandolier Bag at the Newark Museum of Art

Read more about bandolier bags at Smarthistory

Learn more about the history of the Lenni Lenape peoples

See an earlier bandolier bag from the 18th century, made by the Anishinaabe

Learn more about the international market for textiles in the 19th century

Read about quillwork at South Dakota Public Broadcasting

Key points

• Referred to as the Delaware by European colonizers, the Lenni Lenape were one of the first Native North American groups to have contact with Europeans in the early 1500s. Originally residing along the Delaware and Hudson River valleys, by the time this Bandolier Bag was made in the 19th century, they had been relocated: first into Pennsylvania and the Ohio River valley before moving again to reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma.
• Bandolier bags were made by different Native American nations. Early versions were buckskin that was decorated with quillwork, but later forms were made with imported calico and glass beads. With calico coming from England or India, and beads and tinklers manufactured in Europe, these bags were part of 19th-century global trade networks.
• Bandolier bags were dynamic in their design. The beaded motifs are both geometric and organic, one of many dualities suggested in their balance of positive and negative space. Made by women and worn by men, the bags would have produced sound and reflected light as they moved with the wearer.

More to think about

Displayed in the museum, we do not experience bandolier bags in the ways they were meant to be seen. In addition to the musicality of its tinklers, it can be difficult to see the layer of materials or imagine the weight of the bag on the body. What are some ways that these bags could be displayed that would preserve them as fragile historical objects, but could also give viewers a more complete understanding of their function and design?

The intricate surface decoration of the Bandolier Bag signaled the skill of the maker, the status of the wearer, and the group to which they belonged. What objects do we carry or wear that send the same kind of messages?