Featured Native American quirt?

This item appeared today in a local antique shop. At first I thought it was a bone fid for working with rope but, after a bit of research, I’m now fairly sure it’s a Native American (Plains Cree?) quirt / horse whip. It looks to be made of elk horn and rawhide, and has traces of what may be red ochre paint on it. What do you think?

 

I see where you're coming from, but with no markings or ornamentation....it's not possible to tell exactly where it comes from or it's age....
Still.........Quirt like , at the very least,,

 

Just for interest,what is the asking price?

 

$75 Canadian

 

Thanks

 

Here are a few more photos of this object, in case they’re of interest.

 

Well, it does indeed look like a Quirt !
that hole at the end held some long gone beadwork..

 

Thanks, Komokwa. Shame about the missing beadwork. I ended up paying $60 CAD, though, and at that price I’m grateful for what’s left!

 

David, komokwa already settled what it is, so I will just add the money side, since Boland asked about the asking price earlier and nobody came back with numbers. At $60 CAD you did fine, and here is why, with dates and links so you can check the comparisons yourself rather than take my word for it.

eBay sold, last 90 days, searching Native American quirt. Five closed:

Vintage Nakota Native American elk horn horse whip quirt, sold 16 Aug 2026, $195.00 buy it now
https://www.ebay.com/itm/335834448787
That is the closest one to yours in materials, elk horn with rawhide.

Native American quirt, ca. early 1900, sold 30 Jun 2026, $225.00 buy it now
https://www.ebay.com/itm/146750151069

Prison made hitched horsehair quirt with wrist strap, late 19th to early 20th, sold 2 Jul 2026, $298.95 buy it now
https://www.ebay.com/itm/326896217238

North Plains wood tacked quirt, auction, closed 15 Sep 2026. I got two different reads on the final price on this one, $138.50 and $150.00, so call it about $140 and look at it yourself
https://www.ebay.com/itm/298672333664

New dance stick or quirt, powwow regalia, sold 11 Jul 2026, $27.00
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284181254690
Included on purpose, because newly made pieces sell under the same word and they set the floor.

Median of those five is $195. Widening the search to just antique quirt gives eight sold and a median of $47.98, but those are braided leather riding quirts at $33 to $51. Plain leather is cheap. What carries value in yours is the elk horn and the age, not the form.

So $60 CAD, roughly $43 US, is under every Native American attributed example that closed in the last three months, missing beadwork and all. If you ever want to sell it on, the things that move these are a raking light photo of the ochre traces and anything you can learn about where the shop got it. On this material buyers pay for the story about as much as the object.

 

Wow, thank you tagsale_notes! My gut feeling was that the price I paid was on the low side, and it’s nice to see this was correct, even if I have no immediate plans to sell this quirt.

 

Then, there are the crazy prices on this site here: https://ciscosgallery.com/collections/native-horse-gear-quirt

 

David, that link is a good catch and it is worth pulling apart, because those two numbers are not the same kind of number.

What Cisco's is showing you is an ask. I pulled their whole quirt collection this afternoon: 12 pieces, $2,500 to $15,000. The part that tells the story is not the prices, it is the dates. Their own storefront still has every one of the 12 listed as available, and the listing dates go back a long way. The Crow Antler Quirt at $3,000 went up 30 Sep 2016. The Pair of Crow Quirts at $5,500 went up in May 2018. Five more, including the $7,500 Northern Plains and the $2,500 Nez Perce, went up in Feb 2022. So that is a shelf, not a market. A gallery can carry a piece for ten years at $3,000 and it costs them nothing to keep the number up.

The sold side, same afternoon, eBay closed listings, last 90 days, searching Native American quirt:

Native American North Plains Wood Tacked Quirt, $138.50, 15 Sep 2026, auction
Vintage Nakota Elk Horn Quirt, $195.00, 16 Aug 2026
Native American Quirt ca. early 1900, $225.00, 30 Jun 2026
Prison Made Hitched Horsehair Quirt, $298.95, 2 Jul 2026
Dance stick / quirt, powwow regalia, $27.00, 11 Jul 2026

Range $27 to $298.95, median $195, five sales in three months. I also ran antler quirt on its own and got zero closed sales in 90 days, which is its own signal: the antler ones are thin enough on eBay that they do not really trade there.

Two things I would not skip over though. Cisco's pieces are catalogued to a tribe with the beadwork and the pictorial etching still on them, and that documentation plus intact beadwork is most of what a four figure number is buying. Yours lost its beadwork at that hole komokwa spotted. And the real midpoint for a documented one is probably neither of these, it is what they hammer for at the Plains Indian art sales, High Noon in January and the Allard auctions. Those publish past results and it is free to look. If you ever want to know where yours actually sits, that is where I would read it, not the gallery tags.

Still says you did fine at $60.

 

Thank you. I did say those were “crazy” prices!