Mo Ally – Recreating the ancient crafts of Native Americans

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The traditional costumes and artefacts of Native Americans are intricate and beautiful. In the heart of England, Mo Ally preserves the crafts necessary to create them.

Frances Follin: You grew up in Mauritius.  How did your interest in American Indian artefacts and culture begin?  Was it the culture or the artefacts that first attracted you?

Mo Ally: Mauritius was initially discovered by seafaring Arabs, primarily Yemenis and Omanis.  It was a multi-cultural island from early days, originally known as the ‘Key of the Indian Ocean’ because it was ideally situated off the coast of East Africa, giving easy access to the East African Coast, Middle East, the East and Far East.  French is the main language spoken, besides English, Arabic and other languages.

I, my parents, and several earlier generations, were born on the island, although our ancestors were from the Yemen.  Today Mauritius is very well known and, like Hawaii, is sinking under tourists!!

I grew up watching Western films dubbed in French.  Can you imagine watching John Wayne and Native Americans speaking French!! I loved all the colourful regalia that the Native Americans wore – war bonnets, beaded clothing and other items.

Mauritius was a strategically situated island militarily, therefore the US, British and Soviet Navies frequently visited.  Some of the Native Americans in the US Navy gave exhibition dances, which were stunning and riveting for a young boy, so initially it was  the terrific, colourful artefacts and dynamic movements of the dancing that attracted me.

Later, when I moved to the UK, I had more access to ethnographic material at various museums.

FF: How did you learn all the necessary techniques?  Who taught you?

MA: I have done a lot of research, using and experimenting with authentic raw materials and techniques before I perfected the crafts. I made various visits to America and Canada, living on different North American Indian Reservations, which gave me the opportunity to learn more about the living culture and spirituality of these people, primarily the Lakota (Sioux).

I am basically self-taught by research, experimentation and by listening closely to older, knowledgeable Native American Indians.  They did not like my making notes or recording them, so I had to make ‘mental’ notes and write them down later.

FF: Can you tell us a little about the sort of things that you make?

MA: I make a whole range of genuinely museum-quality Northern Plains tribes items, primarily Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne and Arapaho, for the serious collector and hobbyist. I make beaded moccasins, pouches and painted parchment bags, which were used for storage, authentic sinew-backed bows and arrows, sewn, wrapped and braided porcupine quillwork and other items to order.  I do not make pseudo Native American Indian items.  All my items are done in the old traditional way using authentic materials.

FF: You use a variety of materials that are not readily available – how do you source them?

MA: The materials I use are indeed rare and hard to get. I have to go to specialist dealers, traders and various North American sources. For instance, old antique seed beads were used and in 1980 I took a trip to Murano in Italy with some friends, to a large bead manufacturing company called Societe Venetzia, which sadly closed later.

The management were most obliging and took us into the warehouse where old stocks of antique beads were stored. We were stunned and surprised by the visual impact of thousands of kilos of different shapes, sizes and colours of beads.  Some were hanging in huge strings in thousands of loops (hanks) on large steel hooks on the walls and others were stored in huge canvas bags on the floor.  It was a veritable ‘Ali Baba’s treasure trove’! 

Fortunately we were able to buy some authentic old stock of these small old-time seed beads and other beads exactly like those once traded to the Native American tribes in return for furs that they had trapped. These beads were strung on sinew and sewn to the buckskin. Many artefacts are now in museums and private collections.  Sadly, when my stock of these old beads runs out, there will be no more.

Other materials include native tanned buckskin (deer skins tanned naturally with oils and no harsh chemicals), and in the UK I am able to source dried tendons of red deer (the British equivalent of the American elk (wapiti), which can be shredded to make natural threads, although commercially made linen and cotton threads were traded to the Native Americans as early as the 1830s.  There is nothing that equals the strength of sinews. The main disadvantage of working with them is that the threads are short so it is more time consuming than using commercially made thread. I also use the sinews to make Northern-Plains-style composite bows and arrows.

I use natural earth colours and pigments collected on my travels and from specialist suppliers.

Before seed beads were traded to all the tribes, the Northern Plains and Woodland tribes used porcupine quills to ornament and decorate their clothing and artefacts.  In the mid- Western and Northern American states and Canada there are millions of porcupines. They are slow moving like hedgehogs and sadly like hedgehogs there are many road kills from which quills can be obtained legally in quantity. Also, porcupines have to be culled occasionally as they do a lot of damage in the conifer forests, where they eat the bark and shoots of the trees. Specialist firms source these items. The barbed quills are 1.5cm to 5cm long, with diameters of 1mm to 2.5mm.  In contrast, the quills of the much large African porcupine can be as long as 20 to 30cm and as thick as a pencil, and are often used as floats in fishing.

Before use porcupine quills need labour-intensive preparation.  A section of the porcupine skin is cut from the hide, then soaked in soapy water and disinfectant overnight.  Then the hair, guard hair and quills are plucked out.  The quills are pure white in colour with a very sharp black tip.  They are sorted according to size then dyed red, yellow, blue, etc. They were used in many ways for decoration,  but there were three main methods.

In quill wrapping, a thin narrow strip of wood, say 1.5mm thick, or a narrow strip of dried parchment was cut and the quills were individually wrapped around the strip and secured.  A number of strips were combined to create designs and patterns and used to ornament artefacts.

Sewn quillwork was a type of embroidery which involved sewing the dyed quills in patterns onto buckskin, which was then made into clothing.

In quill plaiting, quills were spliced and braided on two parallel stretched threads to make a long thin line, which was then wrapped carefully around such things as pipe stems, knife handles, the handles of war clubs and other weapons, and on ladies fan handles.

FF: What sort of people or organisations buy the finished works?  Do they commission what they want?  What sort of things are most popular?

MA: Private collectors and other interested individuals and organisations in the UK and America come to me as they want a museum-quality item that they are looking for but cannot find, or that is simply too expensive for them to buy. I always mark my work so it is recognizable, to avoid confusion with old antique pieces.

I also do renovations, where possible, on old damaged artefacts. I sell 18th- and 19th-century antique beaded and quilled moccasins and other artefacts to the serious collector and other interested parties.  These old items are getting more scarce and expensive as time passes.

I have exhibited and given lectures at various museums, including The American Museum in Bath and Birmingham Museum.  Sometimes through these events I get additional work.  I find that interest is across a whole spectrum of items, not just specific pieces.

FF: I gather that you have been to the USA to teach young Native Americans the techniques that you use – how did this come about?

In the late 1970s I met a very special man by the name of Selo Blackcrow (now sadly deceased), who was giving a talk at University College London.  Selo was a well-known Spiritual Leader of the Lakota (Sioux) from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  We talked after his presentation and I invited him to stay with me and he gratefully accepted.  It was a terrific opportunity to have someone like Selo stay with me in London. 

After seeing my research and craftwork he invited me to his Reservation in South Dakota to teach the teenagers and others. At other times over the years I also visited other Reservations to do similar projects, teaching old crafts and lost skills to the young and not-so-young; skills they could use to earn money and make a living.

FF: You were featured a while ago on a BBC television programme (Country File). How did that come about?

MA: I have been on TV a number of times over the years and through contacts I am sometimes asked to give talks or exhibitions, which is how my ‘Country File’ appearance came about, as it was related to uses of deer antler.

FF: Your work is very impressive. Thank you for talking to Cassone.