Octopus bag

This Native American bead-woven bag with Wasco/Wishxam-style motifs may have been made as early as the 1850s by the wife of the Cascade chief Welawa, also known as Chief Chenoweth. Its form may have been inspired by decorated shoulder bags seen on Canadian voyageurs at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver or passing by the family’s home on the Columbia River near Hood River, Oregon. The traditional four doubled tabs look like the tentacles of an octopus and give the bag its name.