Antique Knife with Quilled Sheath

Description:
 Knife and sheath. The knife, with a steel blade, has a smoked-skin covered wood handle, covered in porcupine quillwork which may both be decorative and also act as a grip in use. The skin is covered in flattened quills, natural brown and white, and orange now in various shades, apparently partly sewn with wool. The butt or top, and edges at the bottom [with the blade] and sides, are decorated with lines of running orange quills wrapped in spirals along running stitches, possibly also of wool. At the butt is a short single thong, partially wrapped in brown, white and orange quills, split at the end. The sheath [b] is constructed from two knife-shaped pieces of smoked skin, front and back, symmetrical down a central line. The front piece is approximately the same shape as the back piece, to which it is sewn up the sides; at the opening the front top is bent over into a short rectangular flap, decorated with three lines of quillwork in zig-zag line technique. The two pieces of the sheath are sewn together with split quills, in alternating sections of brown, orange and white. The centre of the front of the sheath is decorated with three lines of zig-zag line technique quillwork, running down the sheath, in blocks of white, orange and brown. The empty space between the edges of the sheath and the three central lines running down the axis is filled with two meandering lines of the white quills sewn spirally onto a thread base of running stitches. The front flap has a similar white line at the bottom. At the opening, on either side, are attached skin thongs, wrapped in white and orange quills, ending in hair filled metal cones. A single similar thong survives at the tip of the sheath, with the same orange hair. Further thongs may once have been attached to the base of the front flap. The top of the back of the sheath is bi-lobed, and edged with the same quilled stitching as the rest of the sheath. The remains of a strap are attached to the back: of blue tape, now fragmentary, partially wrapped in white and orange quills.



Dimensions:


Length: 26.5 centimetres (of knife)


Width: 3 centimetres (of blade)


Depth: 2 centimetres (of handle)


Length: 24 centimetres (of sheath without thong and strap)


Width: 5.5 centimetres (of sheath at top)


Length: 29.5 centimetres (a and b: knife loosely inserted in sheath)

Date:
1760-1770

Ethnic group:
Made by Northeast Peoples

Condition:
 Fair; some of the quills have lifted off the handle; some of the thongs are missing off the sheath. Fading has occured.




Copy and image from The British Museum.