Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Collection

Milwaukee Public Museum Curator of Anthropology Dr. Samuel Barrett collected these items while on a Museum expedition to the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation in 1910. He witnessed an eight-day dance which brought Native Americans from all over Wisconsin and as far away as Oklahoma to the reservation. In addition to collecting material objects for the Museum, he recorded field notes about the dance and other cultural aspects of the Ojibwe that would rarely have been seen or documented otherwise. This collection contains over 1,000 objects that are primarily everyday items such as cooking utensils, baskets, and this pair of snowshoes. Many of these items are on display in the Second Floor Woodland exhibit area.