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As someone who gets wander the halls of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on a regular basis, I've got to say, the Native American Art galleries just keep looking better and better.

Associate Curator Joe Horse Capture says, thanks to a generous donation from MIA trustee and former Target CEO Bob Uhlrich, the MIA has been able to add several outstanding pieces to its collection.

One of those recent acquisitions is a Naskapi hunting coat which Horse Capture believes dates back to the mid-18th Century (he's waiting on the results of pigment tests to confirm this).

Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

The Naskapi, also known as the Innu, are traditionally located in Canada's Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador provinces. Horse Capture says this type of coat was worn by a man hunting caribou, which was considered a holy occupation. Traditional beliefs held that the Lord of the Caribou sent animals from the sacred mountain for hunters to harvest.

In other words, a failure to respect the caribou would mean fewer caribou for the Naskapi people in the future.

Naskapi women would incorporate designs their husband saw in dreams into the designs of hunting coats.

Once the hunting season was over, the coat's sacred power would fade and the coats were often traded or sold to the French, in exchange for French garments such as the "Justaucorps." Horse Capture says you can see the influence of French style on this particular hunting coat.

As Native Americans and French settlers traded, Naskapi women began incorporating French fashion elements into their own work.

Horse Capture says of the 60 or so similar hunting coats in collections around the world, this is the finest example to appear on the market in the past ten years.

Arts and Culture

State of the Arts Blog

Marianne Combs

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This 18th century coat, recently acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, was a key part of the ritual hunting of caribou.

A Naskapi hunting coat with a French flair

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