In buckskin pouch; ("Buffalo Stone"); fringed; string carrying cord; geometric bead designs in black/white/blue/yellow. Amulet: section of fossil cephalophod.
Donor:
John Preston Stanley, Philip Mills Jones, and Phoebe Apperson Hearst
Collection place:
Great Plains, North America
Verbatim coll. place:
; Great Plains
Culture or time period:
Piegan
Collector:
J. Disbury and Philip Mills Jones
Collection date:
1903
Taxon:
Bison bison
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Amulets
Function:
5.2 Magic: Objects Associated with Practices reflecting confidence in the ability to manipulate supernatural agencies
Accession date:
1903 and August 1901
Context of use:
One of the usual ingredients of medicine bundles; these objects taught songs to their finders; giving them power to call the buffalo; the small fossils, the "little buffalos", were believed to have the power to grow while in the medicine bundles.