Overview

General Information
First nations art is based in tradition. Materials are drawn from nature and rely on the use of stone and clay and virtually every part of plants and animals: roots, bark and wood; skin, bone, ivory, antler, shell, hair, fur, feathers, quills and sinew. When Europeans came to North America their patterns and designs influenced the materials and patterns that were used in First Nations Art.

Maliseet and Mi'kmaq craftspeople continue to provide equipment, such as canoe paddles, baskets and snowshoes, for everyday tasks. They practise the decorative arts of their ancestors, too. Some of these have been handed down in an unbroken chain of teaching from pre-contact times; others, like porcupine quillwork, have been revived in recent years. These techniques are another way- like the oral tradition, spirituality and adaptations to the environment- in which peoples express and define their identity.

Basic Information about Ned Bear
====Ned Bear is an artist who lives in St.Mary's First Nations, Fredericton New Brunswick. He creates wooden, carved masks called //Pawakan//, which means "Spirit Helpers". They represent beings who work with humans who help them through the complexities of human experience. Bear explains the masks on his website as follows: "There is a huge range of forms that can be classed as spirit-helpers. Sometimes a ‘being’ will choose a form or at least be seen as a form [i.e.- mask] that is acceptable to the person they are working with in terms of their current belief systems and culture.==== ====Ned Bear's masks are well known regionally, nationally, and internationally and his work is found in art museums around the world. Specifically, this lesson deals with a mask created by Ned Bear entitled //Wicitowin Maskwa// or "Friendship Spirit-guide", which was purchased by the city o Fredericton to commemorate the Cultural Capital Year Celebration. The mask is carved from butternut and adroned with horse hair, bear fur and sweet grass. The viewer of the mask is essentially getting a glimpse of the First Nations cultural beliefs through this piece of art. This is where the inspiration for the mask lesson plan came from.====

====Following is a video of Ned Bear discussing being an artist and creating the masks. This could be very helpful to show your students to give them some extra information surrounding Ned Bear and the creative process he goes through to create his pieces of work.====

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"As with most Native American art, there were originally multiple distinct basketry traditions in North America. Different tribes used different materials, weaving techniques,
====basket shapes, and characteristic patterns. Northeast Indian baskets, for example, are traditionally made out of pounded ash splints or braided sweetgrass.” ([])====

**Quillwork**
Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as a decorative element. Porcupine quillwork is an art form completely unique to North America. Before the introduction of glass beads, quillwork was a major decorative element used by the peoples who resided in the porcupine's natural habitat.The use of quills in designs spans from Maine to Alaska.The earliest known fragment of quillwork was found in Alberta, Canada and dates back to 800 CE. Porcupine quills often adorned rawhide and tanned hides, but during the 19th century, quilled birch bark boxes were a popular trade item to sell to European-Americans among Eastern and Great Lakes tribes.