Fire Bag, Shoulder Bag
date: label: Accession Date
content: 27 Sep 1883
name: label: Donor Name
content: Charles L. McKay
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Leather Ornt'd. with beads."
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=606, retrieved 8-23-2012: Fire bag, Athabascan, probably Dena'ina. One of a man's essential items was a small "fire bag" to hold chert and steel for striking sparks and tinder such as wood shavings and powered birch fungus. This fire bag - probably from the Dena'ina people - is made of tanned leather with a red wool [shoulder] strap, ornamented with white dentalium shells and with red and blue faceted glass beads. Dentalium shells from the Northwest Coast were a prized trade item among Athabascan peoples, and their use on this bag may indicate wealth and status. It would have been worn on important occasions such as a potlatch.
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Illus. p. 297 in Jones, Suzi, James A. Fall, and Aaron Leggett. 2013. Dena'inaq' huch'ulyeshi: the Dena'ina way of living. Attributed there as Dena'ina.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 4 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tanaina (Dena'ina) (?)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 013527
label: USNM Number
content: E73048-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Fire Bag
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 67 cm