Hand-tinted stereograph, T. W. Ingersoll [?], c. 1899, 8.9 x 17.8 cm. 

Two Native American Indian women working on a large red and yellow braided mat, which is suspended between a vertical pole and the corner of a log building.  Both women wearing long cotton dresses and aprons.  Small brown dog sitting on ground.  Woods in background. 

On front: “445.  Chippewa Squaws Braiding Rush Mats.” 

On back: “Excepting possibly the Choctaw Indians there is no tribe in the United States farther advanced in the paths of civilization than the Chippewas, who are the Ojibwas of Longfellow’s Hiawatha.  Go where you will in the Chippewa country, you will find the Indians living in comfortable houses, dressing after the fashion of white people and enjoying most of the comforts that might be expected in a white home.  They still, however, retain to some extent, their ancient customs and rites.  The Indian squaw (and, by the way, there is no warrant for the name squaw in any existing Indian language of today, it being a purely white man’s term), except on gala occasions, forswears shoes and clings to her moccasins, although she may have on an elaborate dress, a hat with an ostrich plume and may be carrying a red sun shade.  The Chippewas excel in the manufacture of the mats, such as are shown in this picture, in the weaving of baskets and elaborate bead work and in the working of birch bark.  The inevitable dog is seen in the foreground.  A8835”