Powder Horn from The Chiefswood Collection

Powder horn
Iroquois
Hand carved; cow horn, hide, brass, wood
Length 26.5 x width 8 x height 9 cm
18th century
Area of Origin: Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, Canada
Area of Use: 2.6.3 John Smoke Johnson
Owned by George H.M. Johnson, Mohawk from Six Nations of the Grand River
Daphne Cockwell Gallery of Canada: First Peoples
Gift of Miss Evelyn H.C. Johnson; The Chiefswood Collection

Some of the earliest objects in the collection – a ball-headed club, a powder horn and a collection of silver brooches – belonged to her great grandparents, and date to the period of the American Revolution (1776 – 1783) and the War of 1812. In the early 20th century Evelyn H.C. Johnson, a member of a prominent Six Nations Mohawk family, donated to the Royal Ontario Museum a large number of objects named the Chiefswood Collection after the name of the Johnson family home. In this collection, Evelyn Johnson created a remarkable record of her family over four generations, and of events that involved the Iroquoian people at Six Nations from the end of the American Revolution to the Six Nations Agricultural Fair of 1922.

Copy and images from Royal Ontario Museum.