Pipe bag Lakota Sioux or neighbors, Plains, United States Leather, beads, quill H. 45 cm - W. 17 cm Presented in a frame H. 90 cm - W. 32 cm Provenance: - Private collection, France Pipe bags (or tobacco bags) were used to store ceremonial pipes and sacred tobacco. As Karen Kramer and Theodore Brasser (Plains Indians, Musée du quai Branly, 2014, p. 161 and 230) note, by the late nineteenth century, tobacco pouches became an integral part of ceremonial dress. The Lakota (Sioux) call these pouches Cantohuja ("containers for the heart") in reference to the sacredness of the pipe. This pouch's decoration is finely beaded and decorated, on the lower part above the bangs, with red quill. The motifs include symbolic elements (crosses, arrows, checkerboards) generally linked to the warrior honors of the owner. The quill (porcupine quill) was a fundamental material for the ornamentation of the Plains Indians. Crushed and dyed, quills were used to decorate clothing, jewelry and headdresses. Quillwork was reserved for women. The tobacco pouch presented here is distinguished by the richness and finesse of its different decoration on each of its sides. This pipe pouch could not be decanted to be examined in detail.