Vintage Native American Beaded Medicine Bag Blue

This is a sweet little hand beaded medicine bag of blue glass seed beads. It's a vintage piece in all-blue except for a few larger clear accent beads. It's decorated with fringe and has a folding top.

It's meant to be worn around your neck as an adornment, but it's also a functional holder of good and tiny things. Here are some little treasures this medicine bag would happily hold (not all at once) . . . 

• a key
• one or two hard candies or mints
• a little tiny pot of lip gloss 
• a miniature mascara (Anastasia of Beverly Hills makes a nice one that will fit)
• a few coins
• a little bit of folded cash
• a folded up note with a positive affirmation
• a blank piece of paper with a teeny tiny pen or pencil
• gum
• a tiny sample vial of perfume
• one folded up tissue (or two)
• a dried flower or two
• a favorite fortune from your cookie

This wonderful little treasure is from the private collection of Martha Struever, the late Native American art dealer. I wonder what she would have carried in it. There was likely a story behind this little beaded pouch. As it stands, it could have been made by a Navajo, a Pueblo or a Plains bead worker. We no longer have its origin story, but it has many more stories to make as it carries your own good medicine.

The bag/necklace measures 4" from top of bag to tip of fringe by 1 7/8" wide. The bag portion measures 2 1/2" x 1 7/8" wide. The necklace portion hangs 15" plus the 4" total bag.

Besides the beads, the piece was made with cloth string and satin.