362-23<BR> Hodenosaunee (possibly Seneca) pincushion; ye:wéotahkwa (Tooker 1994:101; also cf. 277); cloth, glass; d. 15 cm., h. 5 cm.; ca. 1880.<BR> Ten Kate purchased this star-shaped pincushion, ornamented with a beaded floral design and a looped fringe, at Niagara Falls, NY. He was told by the seller - an unidentified individual whom he deemed reliable - that it was made by a Kickapoo girl or woman and came from Kansas or Indian Territory (letter of Ten Kate from St, Louis, Dec. 16, 1882; nr. 273 ARMV). However, it seems unlikely that this attribution was correct. The Algonquian-speaking Kickapoos, probably originally a branch of the Shawnees, had left their original homeland in southeastern Michigan in the early eighteenth century, just before the arrival of Europeans, and were living in Kansas by the time that this beadwork style was invented. The colors, materials, and white-on-red beadwork style of the pincushion are unmistakably Hodenosaunee, most likely Seneca or Tuscarora. A very similar pincushion, possibly made by a member of the family of Ten Kate's host at Tuscarora, Caroline Parker Mount Pleasant, was illustrated by Lewis Henry Morgan in his classic 1852 publication (fig 19; Phillips 1998:56).<BR> It is possible that the Kickapoo attribution was recounted to Ten Kate to satisfy an interest in the western tribes he was about to visit that he had made obvious - for sellers everywhere do their best to please their customers. It is also true, however, that by the 1880s Hodenosaunee entertainers and beadwork sellers were traveling by rail to western Canada and the United States; a well-known photograph shows the St. Regis Indian Show Company (a Mohawk group from Akwesasne) wearing beaded clothing while visiting Lawrence, Kansas in 1894 (Phillips 1998:15). It is, therefore, not impossible that the pincushion was made by a Kickapoo woman married to a Hodenosaunee man.<BR> 362-23, WMR 17990, 17991 Iroquois pincushions<BR> During the late nineteenth-century, pincushions assumed many fanciful forms that appealed to the Victorian taste for 'novelties.' When Niagara Falls became a market for Native-made souvenirs, pincushions - sometimes embroidered with dates, place names, and mottos - emerged as a popular type of curio to buy and take home for display and practical use. As well, Northeastern souvenir producers also made other sewing accessories such as scissors and needle cases of cloth ornamented with beads or birchbark embroidered with porcupine quills. These could be purchased separately or with birchbark sewing baskets of various sizes and shapes. <BR> Hodenosaunee souvenir producers invented pincushions that gave three-dimensional form to the bird and berry motif favoured in their other embroidery. They also reinterpreted in cloth and beads the shape of a lady's shoe or boot that was popular in metal match safes and other industrially produced Victorian novelties. Their inventiveness participated in a longer tradition. Pin cushions were first recorded in 15th century England. Precious metal pins were formerly kept in ivory or silver receptacles, but became gradually replaced by stuffed "pin pillows" covered with silk and linen, often ornamented with embroidery, lace, tassels, and bead decoration. Over time, materials, shapes, and decoration took on immense variation, and in the 18th century pincushions emerged as a popular souvenir genre whose exotic materials, shapes, and decoration referred to the peoples and places visited. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pincushions and other needlework accessories became icons of femininity and domesticity, womanhood and motherhood. In upper class circles they were sometimes incorporated into a woman's dress, attached to or hanging from a waist belt.<BR> (Phillips and Hovens 2008-09)<BR> <BR> <BR> Speldenkussen in de vorm van een ster met zes hoeken, met rode en witte stof bekleed en versierd met glazen kralen. Waarschijnlijk wel door Indianen gemaakt, maar geen Indiaanse kunst. Een typisch nonnenkloosterprodukt.