Parfleche

A parfleche is a Native American rawhide container that is embellished by painting, incising, or both.

Envelope-shaped parfleches have historically been used to contain items such as household tools or foods, such as dried meat or pemmican. They were commonly made in pairs and hung from saddles. Their designs may have once served as maps. In contemporary usage, they may carry social, spiritual, and symbolic meaning, or be part of dance or parade regalia.

The bags are usually decorated with a distinctive style of graphic artwork, often symbolizing landscape features such as rivers and mountains. Historically women were the main creators of parfleches, first painting stretched-out raw hides, then shaping them into their final form. In the 21st century, both women and men make them.

The increased mobility among the post-contact Plains Indians horse culture required that essential goods such as preserved foods (including pemmican), clothing, medicines, and ceremonial items be transported efficiently in lightweight and weatherproof packaging.^: 29. While the most common form of the parfleche was the folded envelope or flat wallet, they were also constructed as laced flat cases, cylinders, and trunks.^: 59.

The production of parfleche bags declined drastically when mercenaries hired by the US federal government slaughtered the buffalo herds to the brink of extinction. The federal government forced Indigenous peoples to relocate onto government-partitioned reservations.^: 38. While less visible to the colonists who were collecting them for museums, some tribes, particularly the Nez Perce were able to continue hunting and making parfleches throughout the 20th century. The Niisitapi and Lakota people continue to produce parfleches today.^: 39.