Micmac Quillwork
Micmac Indian Techniques of Porcupine Quill Decorations:
1600-1950
by Ruth Holmes Whitehead

About this book:

Very rare, out of print.

This large hardcover book includes over 500 b&w illustrations/pictures (and 32 colour pictures) of quillwork items of the Micmac people. 230 pages - 10.5" 11.25". Copyright 1982. Excellent condition. Dust jacket may show some light wear.

Info. from the inside flap:

The Micmac Indian women of Eastern Canada and New England have long been noted for their exquisite work in porcupine quills, particularly their mosaics of quills on birchbark. Micmac Quillwork, the first major work on this art form, falls naturally into three sections.

The opening chapters of this book are a comprehensive history of the craft, from the period of European contact to the present, tracing the use of quill weaving, embroidery, plaiting, wrapping, and the rise of the technique known as bark-insertion. As bark-insertion was the only type of quilling to survive into the 19th and 20th centuries, the book's main emphasis is on this variation.

Section Two covers materials, construction and ornamentation techniques with Section Three an exhaustive record of quillwork designs. Comparisons are made to similar motifs in other Micmac media. An appendix discusses known quillwork artists; another deals with the conservation of quillwork. There is an extensive bibliography.

Major collections in Canada, Great Britain and the United States were examined and catalogued; additional collections were researched in France, Ireland and as far away as New Zealand. Over 3,000 record photographs were taken, and from these have been chosen the 500 black-and-white illustrations and the 32 colour plates, most of them never before published.