Parfleche Container- With Beadwork

Parfleche Container- With Beadwork

Add this brightly painted Parfleche Container- With Beadwork to your collection or use it at your next event! The crafter created this small Parfleche from rawhide.  He painted geometric designs on the front with red, black, blue, and yellow paint.  He added red wool along the sides and stitched the piece together with Braintanned deerskin leather lacing.

The crafter made the top flap with Braintanned Deerskin Leather and added a row of beadwork in Periwinkle, Pumpkin and Black Seed Beads to it. The container comes with Braintanned deerskin leather lacing front ties and hanging strap.  It measures 6.5″ wide x 5″ long.  One of a Kind!

A parfleche (pronounced par‑flesh) is a traditional Native American container made from rawhide. The word comes from the French parer (“to parry or shield”) and flèche (“arrow”), referring to the way the heavy hide could deflect arrows. Rawhide also served as a durable material for shields. To create a parfleche, makers—especially those from the Great Plains region—used untanned animal hide, often buffalo, and decorated the surface with intricate geometric designs painted with natural pigments from plants and minerals. These versatile containers held food, clothing, personal belongings, and important cultural items, and they played an essential role in the mobile lifestyle of many Plains communities, as people could easily carry them on horseback during travel and hunting expeditions.

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