The other type of quilling is done with porcupine quills, and it is a craft where the quills are sometimes dyed and arranged in different patterns. They can be sewed onto cloth, wrapped around objects such as handles, and become part of birch bark boxes. In 1840, making decorative seats for wooden chairs for the English market became popular among Micmac tribespeople who quilled. The above image is from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/quillwork. It is captioned, “Mi’kmaq quillwork chair seat (courtesy Glenbow Museum/Canadian Ethnology Service, CMC).” I imagine hand/eye coordination is important in porcupine quilling as well as in paper quilling.

If you would like more information about either type of quilling, look at the menu above. Under ‘Nat. American Crafts’, you will see ‘Porcupine Quilling’. Under ‘Paper’, you will see ‘Paper Quilling’.

https://crazyhorsememorial.org/the-museums/the-indian-museum-of-north-america/

Unfortunately, I do not always remember what is demonstrated in front of me, but I was able to remember that the porcupine quills would sometimes be softened by placement in the mouth of the artist. I also remember that the quills were sometimes dyed in order to make them part of a design. I have a book called In the Spirit of Mother Earth: Nature in Native American Art that I found a little more information in and added a web page to this site, which can be found in the menu above under Nat. American Crafts and then Porcupine Quilling.

The sculpture of Crazy Horse is very much a work in progress, since more funds are needed in order to complete the sculpture as it was designed by the original sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski. A non-profit was formed to help pay for the explosives and other things needed to complete the sculpture, but one year a $60,000 check was donated, and the weather made it so no sculpting could be done. Therefore, the check was used to build the museum. I think they really did a good job making the museum and filling it with artifacts. Also, funded by the non-profit is a college for Native Americans in the area. A medical school has been planned as well. Perhaps the family of Korczak Ziolkowski, who run the non-profit have determined that the funding contributed by visitors to the sculpture and the museum is of more value to the local Native Americans than the sculpture itself. Maybe they just want to see the job done right. I do not know. Perhaps they would like both things to happen. In looking online recently, I was able to see quite a bit of progress in Crazy Horse’s face on the sculpture.

An interesting article about some controversial opinions of the sculpture can be found here:

https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/05/us/crazy-horse-memorial/index.html