Caribou-skin model of a hunter

This is likely to have been a model made for sale at a fur trading post, but it could also have been a playdoll designed to educate children. The hunter wears face-paint, of the kind that would have been worn by a chief on special occasions. This may have been a ritual ceremony, or the more mundane, but very important business of the fur trade.

He wears summer costume, made of caribou skin, with an all-in-one trouser moccasin, and a beaded shirt or tunic. The yoke of the tunic and leggings are decorated with beadwork, while the belt is of loom-woven quillwork. Strips of quillwork were widely used for appliqué decoration: they were created on a loom, a bent stick strung with sinew warps providing the tension.

The model came to The British Museum from the collection of the Marquis of Lorne. Lord Lorne was Governor-General of Canada in the 1880s. He was married to Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Louise, whose second name was given to the province of Alberta.