Featured Apache (????) beaded bag

I bought this bag in a junk shop in Alamogordo, NM. I was told at the time that it was sold to the shop by an Apache family.

It's doeskin, with beautiful workmanship. All the stitching was done by hand.

 

The design is similar to other, older bags I have seen that are identified as Apache. Many were made in the 1920's, to be sold at various tourist destinations.

http://www.portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=21942;type=101


https://www.icollector.com/APACHE-BEADED-BAG_i9265012



https://www.icollector.com/Apache-Beaded-Bag-circa-1920s_i13429982

Yours is more recent, perhaps not much older than when you bought it. The leather appears to be commercially tanned deerskin. On traditional native tanned/brain tanned leather the hair/dermis/skin side is removed, leaving a suede-like surface on both sides.

 

r the large beads glass..? or plastic?

 

Most likely glass. They feel pretty heavy and don't have the telltale mold lines.

 

Agree that it's commercially tanned leather.