This is a fabulous late-vintage Montana Blackfoot / Blackfeet Bear Cult dag knife with bear jaw handle and forged blade set in a parfleche lined beaded sheath. The knife exhibits a beaver back / beaver tail dag knife blade showing a forged steel blade with double edge and hidden tang having a carved wood guard with brass tacks and the handle being a Montana Black Bear skull jaw bone with the pommel end being the impressive teeth protruding. The handle is wrapped in parfleche rawhide strips with a slight green coloring. The end has Indian tanned hide tied white turkey feather drop, with each feather being wrapped in red stroud clothe and as well as four fringes each carrying a variation of old skunk trade medicine beads, brass trade beads and wound glass amber trade beads as well as brass metal hawk trade bells. The sheath is parfleche rawhide hard lined and covered in Indian tanned hide with a thick border of thin frilly Indian hide fringes at the top and bottom as well as a section of pony glass trade beads in a classic Northern Plains Blackfoot geometric pattern that wraps around both sides. The bottom fringes have Elk dew claw dangles. The fringes are stiffened. This is truly a gorgeous knife and sheath set with rich Bear Cult Blackfeet history from the 20th century. The bear knife was used by the members of the Bear Cult among the Assiniboine, Eastern Dakota, Blackfoot and Sarsi tribes. These knives were sacred and used during hand to hand combat in battle. Obtaining a Bear-Cult dag knife was difficult. The knife was transferred in a ritual ceremony, per Harold Peterson’s report, and as the ceremony was coming to a close the owner of the knife, after imitating the antics of a bear, would suddenly hurl the knife at the candidate. If he failed to catch the knife, he was not worthy of the knife, but if he caught it he was thrown naked upon a bed of thorns and beaten thoroughly with the flat of the blade while the ceremonial Bear-Cult paint was applied to his aching body (openly quoted from “American Knives”). Knife and sheath together with fringes and feathers is approx.. 40-inches long. The knife by itself without feathers is 15.75-inches long by 2 5/8-inches wide.