Featured tourist? bead ?fetish.

found these lurking in a pot while going through my ethnic box. I think I bought them many years ago at an auction, both have a piece of a small animal, the mainly yellow one has what looks like a rabbit paw, with a real leather loop. the other is slightly smaller and not as detailed, and appears to be woven around a sinew, the heads are all woven around a piece of bone, one has been made into a pin, am wondering if the 2 with loops might be a fetish, and the others ? also wondering if they are indeed Native made or just made to look Native thank you all

 

The heads are made using a sheep vertebra, and can be used as a neckerchief or bolo slide. I've seen these listed as a traditional Zuni craft; or cowboy craft, and don't really know for sure. Might try googling "beaded steer bolo slide" or such. but whether these were Zuni, or made by boy scouts, I couldn't say; maybe others will chime in. Compare https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/rare-vintage-zuni-beaded-cow-head-scarf-slide
However, I don't think they are terribly rare.

 

They were made as tourist souvenirs IIRC. The maker could have been a Native and might have been some guy in a shed in Mexico or China.

 

These are all authentic Zuni folk art items, made for the tourist trade.

They have been making these beaded souvenirs for at least the last 80 years or so. Early ones were beaded over a rabbit's foot, a practice that pretty much ended in the 1970s. (As all_fakes pointed out, the slides are made from sheep vertebra.) The rabbit foot ones were made for key chains, or to dangle off the rear view mirror, when that was a common practice.

Within the last decade or so, Chinese copies of the beaded "skirts" and "chiefs" flooded the markets in the southwest, so Zuni beaders started switching to larger, more elaborate little beaded sculptures...of every imaginable subject, including Zuni maidens, nuns, outhouses, and lots of different animals. Some of the early examples are on display in Santa Fe's Museum of International Folk Art.

 

wonderful information, Thank you all so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise,

 

I really like your items, Nancy. Especially the combination with the animal parts.

I also have a pair of these small beaded skirts and chiefs (no bones , ca. 5 cm high). I got them in the 1970s (as a child). Would they be zuni, or copies?