Mi’kmaq type beaded cap.

Mi’kmaq type beaded cap.

A man’s cap, Canadian Wabanaki type, possibly Mi’kmaq, circa 1860.  A similar hat was made by Mary Ann Geneace of Richibucto, New Brunswick in the second half for the nineteenth century. This example has much finer beads than the Geneace example and may be a little earlier. See: The Spirit Sings – Artistic Traditions of Canada’s First Peoples, McCelland and Steward, Glenbow Museum, 1987 for the Geneace example.

Some of these may have been worn as “smoking caps.” Style-conscious men wore formal indoor caps from the sixteenth through the late nineteenth century. They were generally worn to prevent the hair from smelling of tobacco smoke.