The lot features a bear jaw / Bear Cult and buffalo hide wrapped knife and beaded sheath from Lakota Sioux John Young Buck. The piece is from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Lakota Sioux, John Young Buck (Born 1944-) in the 20th-century from a Montana estate. The piece exhibits a Black Bear Jaw handle wrapepd in dark blue wood trade clothe with glass trade seed bead, beadwork and a wrapping of Great American Bison Buffalo Hide with a pewter lead inlaid crudely forged clip point bowie knife blade. The knife is paired with a parfleche rawhide belt sheath with rawhide lace sewing, adorned with dark blue trade clothe and brass trade tacks with a nice section of beadwork down the center in glass trade seed beads with a Buffalo Track pattern. 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”) Together the pair measures 15.75-inches long. The knife is 136.25-inches long. The sheath is 12-inches long by 5-inches wide.