Woman's Bag

Women's societies and guilds, whose members were responsible for the creation of various artistic forms imbued with sacred associations, existed in several Plains cultures. Work materials were often kept in special containers such as this, which could be visually powerful in themselves. Here, a deep, saturate red derived from native iron oxide pigment covers the entire surface of the bag. The paint itself is often associated with sacred power, and the resulting field of richly subdued color contrasts effectively with the shiny glass beads and stark, linear simplicity of the design.