This highly distinctive type of bag probably had its origins among decorated animal skin pouches (incorporating legs and tails) made by Ojibwe artists in the Great Lakes region in the 1700s. Eventually sewn from cloth, the bags took on their present design, with the animals’ four legs morphing into more stylized pendant shapes. The bags became popular among the Cree and Cree-Métis who used the bags as firebags, decorating them with floral designs, and through trade rapidly spread the bags and their designs northwest into Athapaskan, Shuswap, and Tlingit territories by the 1850s. The Plains Métis were the great popularizers of octopus bags and their most prolific makers, but the bags were soon made by the Tlingit themselves, and many historical photos show Tlingit proudly wearing them as regalia. it may have been the Tlingit who invented the term “octopus bag” because of their distinctive shape, with four appendages each ending in two points, or a total of eight points (or alternatively, eight appendages when the bottoms of the two panels are not sewn together).

This stunning Octopus Bag features particularly complex and dense floral beadwork designs on both sides. Kate Duncan disputes the widespread belief that octopus bags were widely used and made by Athapaskans [1]. Given this example’s likely early date of manufacture and its lovely meandering floral patterns it is probably Métis, but it is certainly possible that it was made by a Tlingit artist. Gorgeous.

1. Duncan, Northern Athapaskan Art: A Beadwork Tradition, 1989, p. 181.

References: For a discussion of octopus bags as well as illustrations (including documentary) see Kate C. Duncan, Northern Athapaskan Art: A Beadwork Tradition, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989), p. 180-184. See also Henry B. Collins et. al., The Far North: 2000 Years of American Eskimo and Indian Art, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), cats. 203, 204; and Bill Holm, The Box of Daylight: Northwest Coast Indian Art, (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum and Univ. of Washington Press, 1983), cats. 93-95 (Tlingit). See also Douglas C. Ewing, Pleasing the Spirits: A Catalogue of a Collection of American Indian Art, (New York: Ghylen Press, 1982), cats. 258-259. For another fine example see First Arts Auction, November 2021, Lot 28.