NATIVE AMERICAN CEREMONIAL BUFFALO HORN CUP DAVID HOWARD TRIBAL ART NATIVE AMERICAN CEREMONIAL BUFFALO HORN CUP

NATIVE AMERICAN:
QUILLED AND BEADED
CEREMONIAL BUFFALO HORN CUP
CIRCA LATE 19TH CENTURY

Native American Quilled And Beaded Ceremonial Buffalo Horn Cup circa 1880; blue and white beaded trim around the lip with brain tanned leather fringe wrapped in dyed quills; that terminate in metal cones stuffed with dyed red horse hair. Very good condition; measures approximately 9 X 7 X 4 inches with a 3 1/2" cup diameter.

Native Americans Indians use horn of buffalo, mountain sheep,
and cow to make ceremonial drinking vessels! Research projects
with the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in
2005 let to the discovery of many different types of drinking vessels
used by Native Americans on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Buffalo horn cups, horn spoons, and small "mini spoons,"
for individual use, were discovered along with cups
made from whole horns. On a very few cups and
spoons found; they had carvings and earth colored inlaid.

The Algonquian Indians in early America created the tomahawk.
Before Europeans came to the continent, Native Americans would
use stones attached to wooden handles, secured with strips of
rawhide. Though typically used as weapons, they could also be
used for everyday tasks, such as chopping, cutting or hunting.

When Europeans arrived, they introduced the metal blade
to the natives, which improved the effectiveness of the tool.
Metal did not break as readily as stone and could be fashioned
for additional uses. Native Americans created a tomahawk’s poll,
the side opposite the blade, which consisted of a hammer, spike or
a pipe. These became known as pipe tomahawks, which consisted
of a bowl on the poll and a hollowed out shaft. These were
created by European and American artisans for
trade and diplomatic gifts for the tribes.

Pre-contact Native Americans lacked ironmaking technology,
so tomahawks were not fitted with metal axe heads until they could
be obtained from trade with Europeans. The tomahawk's original
designs were fitted with heads of bladed or rounded stone or
deer antler. A pipe tomahawk dating to the early 19th century.

The modern tomahawk shaft is usually less than 2 ft (61 cm) in length,
traditionally made of hickory, ash, or maple. The heads weigh
anywhere from 9–20 oz (260–570 g), with a cutting edge usually
not much longer than four inches (10 cm) from toe to heel.
The poll can feature a hammer, spike, or may simply be rounded
off, and they usually do not have lugs.These sometimes
had a pipe-bowl carved into the poll, and a hole drilled
down the center of the shaft for smoking tobacco through
the tomahawk. There are also metal-headed versions of this
unusual pipe. Pipe tomahawks are artifacts unique to North
America: created by Europeans as trade objects but often
exchanged as diplomatic gifts. They were symbols of
the choice Europeans and Native Americans faced
whenever they met: one end was the pipe of peace,
the other an axe of war.

In colonial French territory, a very different tomahawk
design, closer to the ancient European francisca, was in use
by French settlers and indigenous peoples. In the late
18th century, the British Army issued tomahawks to
their colonial regulars during the American
Revolutionary War as a weapon and tool.

Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of
Europeans to the Americas has led to centuries of population,
cultural, and agricultural transfer and adjustment between
Old and New World societies, a process known as the
Columbian exchange. Most Native American groups
had historically preserved their histories by oral traditions
and artwork, which has resulted in the first written
sources on the conflict being authored by Europeans.

At the time of first contact, the indigenous cultures were
quite different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly
Christian immigrants. Some of the Northeastern and
Southwestern cultures in particular were matrilineal and
operated on a more collective basis than the Europeans
were familiar with. The majority of Indigenous American
tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural
lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had
patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of individual
property rights with respect to land that were extremely
different. The differences in cultures between the established
Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting
alliances among different nations in times of war, caused extensive
political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption. Even
before the European settlement of what is now the United States,
Native Americans suffered high fatalities from contact
with European diseases spread throughout the Americas
by the Spanish to which they had yet not acquired immunity.
Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest
loss of life for indigenous populations, although estimates of
the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the
U.S. vary significantly, from one million to eighteen million.

After the thirteen colonies revolted against Great Britain
and established the United States, President George
Washington and Henry Knox conceived of the idea of
"civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for
assimilation as U.S. citizens. Assimilation (whether
voluntary, as with the Choctaw, or forced) became a consistent
policy through American administrations. During the 19th
century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to
the American nationalist movement. Expansion of
European-American populations to the west after the
American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on
Native American lands, warfare between the groups, and
rising tensions. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian
Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native
Americans from their homelands within established states to
lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating
European-American expansion. This resulted in the ethnic
cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches
coming to be known as The Trail of Tears.