canoe maker

Menomini Paddle Photo

I'm finding a bunch of different images of traditional native paddles on Archive.org. Page 222 of Material culture of the Menomini by Alanson Skinner has a photo of a "typical" straight sided blade design of this tribe.


Menomini Paddle
The blade design seems similar to the antique Chippewa (Ojibway) paddle from LiveAuctioneers.com posted about here. Since the territories and culture of the Chippewa and Menomini overlapped quite a bit, similarities in paddle and canoe design would be expected.

Chippewa Canoe Paddle
Length: 56 inches.
Early 20th century
Full Link
Further on in the book on page 339, Alanson depicts the decorative etchings found on a Menominee paddle in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History.


The excerpt from the text describing this paddle is below:

Floral designs and "war-clubs" or "lacrosse racquets" may be noted on the canoe paddle in fig. 63. This paddle, which is 31 in. long, is in the American Museum of Natural History.

This sounded familiar and sure enough, I had posted pics of these paddles in an earlier post on incised decorations. Difficult to make out the etching details in the pics, but they are there...

Catalog No: 50 / 9792
Culture: MENOMINEE
Locale: WI, MENOMINEE INDIAN RESERVATION
Dimensions: L:99.2 W:10.5 H:1.8 [in CM]
Accession No: 1910-44