« The consulting of oracles so as to determine where and when to hunt and to know the future with reference to the weather, illness, and personal matters was extremely important to the Lake St. John Montagnais. It is a subject that has been discussed in considerable detail by Speck (1935, pp. 138-147). A more recent discussion of the subject, with a different interpretation, is found in Tanner (1979, ch. 6 ). » Vanstone, James W. "The Speck Collection of Montagnais Material Culture from the Lower St. Lawrence Drainage, Quebec." Fieldiana. Anthropology. New Series, No. 5 (October 29, 1982), p.19. « Two specimens in the collection were associated with attempts to control the wind. A moose astragalus buzzer with an attached string of babiche was operated to make the wind rise (fig. 32f). A fragment of dried woodchuck scalp was thrown into a lake to make the wind go down. » Vanstone, James W. "The Speck Collection of Montagnais Material Culture from the Lower St. Lawrence Drainage, Quebec." Fieldiana. Anthropology. New Series, No. 5 (October 29, 1982), p.20.

Henry L. Batterman Fund and the Frank Sherman Benson Fund

Earplugs. A red-feathered disk is surrounded by white beads and attached to a carved piece of bone. Pendants of abalone are suspended from the red disk.

At either side of this bunch of owl feathers are one or two pairs of triple pronged ceremonial hairpins. Wire is used as their base as the desired effect is to make them tremble as the dancer moves.

This is a bunch of owl feathers that would be tied into a hairnet and worn on the back of the dancer's head. They would be secrued with the pin. See 08.491.8802

Plume stick consisting of a wooden handle and two feathers attached to the handle by two cords of white beads.This pin would be stuck into the bunch of owl feathers (08.491.8807). These items are part of the feathered headgear stuck into a hairnet and tied at the back of a dancer's head.

This ceremonial plume would have been worn straight across the back of the head, stuck into a hair net. Curator Culin's informant, George, said that it indicated his rank as captain and it had been a gift to him. The raw materials are responsible for much of the effect of wealth and prestige. The larger piliated woodpecker does not live around Chico; its feathers must be traded in from the mountains. This pin employs sixteen of its scalps- a multiple of four, the sacred number. The manzanita wood for the shaft is especially hard and difficult to carve.

This is a flat, wooden pipe stem, painted blue-green at the bowl end. The end nearer the mouth piece is decorated with a combination of colored lines which are narrow strips of braided quillwork wrapped around to encircle the flat stem. These strips are carefully planned to create a striped design from the combination of narrow bands as they are stacked or lined up one after the other. The design is red, white, blue, and black on one side and different on the reverse, consisting largely of black triangles tipped with short horizontal bands and offset by long horizontal bands. The bands are colored blackish-purple, orange and white. A hide strap is covered with long white bird quill wrapped fringes. Red horsehair is tied on at both ends of the quillwork and bird scalps are also attached.

The object is a bow, a bow case, arrows and a quiver. Bow is inlaid with elk antler and decorated with bands of mallard duck neck skin. There is red dyed horsehair tufts at each end. Duck skin is used because for the Sioux the duck appears in all three levels of the world - sky, water and earth. The buffalo hide bow and quiver case has red and black pigment mixed with glue. Even lines of glue are used to create lines around the black triangles. The bow has an elaborate design on the surface created by inlaid sections of elk horn. On either side of the inlaid area is a red painted band, at the ends of which are mallard scalp feathers that have almost disappeared. The bow is backed with white-painted thread. Attached to each end of the bow are red horsehair ornaments. Also attached is a strip of red stroud cloth fastened around the handgrip. The bow case and quiver are made of buffalo hide and have sparsely painted designs. There are five configured designs: two on each side of the bow case and one on the quiver. The designs are made up of elongated diamond shapes divided in half with a small linking section between each repeated triangular part. All parts of the design are delineated with thin impressed lines. The triangles are filled in alternately with dark brown and red color. The small linking section is brown. The intensity of the colors is pale, perhaps from an application of sizing. From the bottom of the bow case hang hide tabs, with pierced decorations.

The ash wood pipe stem is carved, pierced and painted with red and blue-green paint. It is decorated with horsehair, a bird scalp, and a piece of silk ribbon. The original Jarvis inscription reads, "Indian Pipe Menominee."