{{Short description|Shoulder bag carried by Native Americans}} thumb|right|300px|Portrait of Pete Moos, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, c1913 by photographer Ross A. Daniels. The photo shows the two gashkibidaaganag (bandolier bags) and the spot-stitch appliqué featuring complex layered and assembled motifs that are associated with the Mille Lacs Band.
A '''bandolier bag''' is a Native American shoulder pouch, often beaded. Early examples were made from pelts, twined fabrics, or hide, but beginning in the fur trade era, Native American women stitched bags of imported wool broadcloth, lined with cotton calico and often edged with silk ribbons.
== Name == The bags are named for bandoliers or the cloths carrying gunpowder that soldiers wore from the 16th to early 20th centuries. They are also called shot pouches or simply shoulder bags.
In Ojibwemowin, or the Ojibwe language, bandolier bags are called ''gashkibidaagan''. The Ojibwe name comes from the word parts, gashk-, meaning "enclosed, attached together" and -bid, "tie it."{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}
The English word ''bandolier'' comes from the French word ''bandouliere'' meaning "shoulder belt" and traces back to the Spanish ''bandoera'' the diminutive of ''banda'' or "sash."{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}
== Use == A bandolier bag may be worn either across the shoulder to the side or in front like an apron.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kstrom.net/isk/art/beads/bando1.html |title=Bandolier Exhibit Menu |last=Giese |first=Paula |year=1997 |website=Native American Indian: Art, Culture, Education, History, Science |access-date=2017-04-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110119173146/http://www.kstrom.net/isk/art/beads/bando1.html |archive-date=2011-01-19 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Anderson|first=Marcia|title=A Bag Worth a Pony: The Art of the Ojibwe Bandolier Bag|publisher=Minnesota Historical Society Press|year=2017|isbn=978-1-68134-029-6|location=St. Paul, Minnesota|pages=11-12}}</ref> Men wore them and placed valuables such as tobacco, pipes, medicine, or flint for starting fires.
==Gallery== <gallery> File:BandolierBag-BMA.jpg|Muscogee bandolier bag, {{Circa|1820}}, wool, cotton, silk, glass beads, Birmingham Museum of Art File:Bandolier Bag MET DT258625.jpg|Loom-beaded bandolier bag attributed to Winnebago people, {{circa|1880s}}, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Bandolier bag, Woodlands, c. 1840, glass beads, wool, cotton - Portland Art Museum - Portland, Oregon - DSC09148.jpg|Woodlands artist, ''Bandolier Bag'', ca. 1840, wool, cotton, and glass beads, Portland Art Museum. </gallery>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[https://www.mpm.edu/research-collections/anthropology/online-collections-research/bandolier-bag-collection Bandolier Bag Collection], Milwaukee Public Museum
{{Bags}}
Category:Bags Category:Native American religion Category:Indigenous culture of the Great Plains Category:Indigenous culture of the Northeastern Woodlands Category:Indigenous culture of the Southeastern Woodlands Category:Indigenous culture of the Subarctic