Patterns - Thunderbird

About the Indigenous Pattern Library

Thunderbird continues to build a library of patterns reproduced from referenced historical materials to authentically represent the rich and varied use of design and patterning used by Indigenous Peoples throughout Turtle Island. The following are just some that you’ll see on this site.

If you have patterns you would like to see reproduced or if you are from a community represented below and would like access to the artwork, please contact: communications@thunderbirdpf.org

A-shiwi (Zuni)

The A-shiwi (Zuni) are a Pueblo people native to the Zuni River valley, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, in what is now known as western New Mexico.

Anishinaabe - Gichigamiwininiwag

The Gichigamiwininiwag (Lake Superior Chippewa) are a large number of Anishinaabe First Nations living around what is now known as Lake Superior.

Anishinaabe - Mississauga

The Mississauga are an Anishinaabe people located in what is now known as southern Ontario on the shores of Lake Superior and northern Lake Huron around the Mississagi River.

Anishinaabe - Odawa

The Odawa are Anishinaabe people who live primarily in the and Eastern Woodlands along what now known as Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

Anishinaabe - Ojibwe

(Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux) An Anishinaabe people of what is now known as southern Canada and the northern Midwestern United States. They are one of the most numerous indigenous peoples north of the Rio Grande.

Apache - Jicarilla

The Jicarilla Apache are an Eastern Apache Nation whose territory is in what is now known as northeastern New Mexico.

Apsáalooke (Crow)

The Crow, or Apsáalooke, are a Plains people now living primarily in what is known as southern Montana. The Crow ancestral tribe was located near Lake Erie in what is now Ohio.

Astarawi (Pit River Tribe)

Astarawi territory is primarily along the Pit River (Achoma) and the surrounding plains, hills, mountains, and valleys in the northeast corner of what is now known as California.

ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ (Cherokee)

The Cherokee are a Southeastern Woodlands people. Their territory extends along river valleys intersecting what is now known as North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.

Cree - mihkwâkamîwi-sîpîsis (Little Red River)

Little Red River Cree Nation are a Woodland Cree people with three communities in the northern part of what is now known as Alberta.

Cree - ᒥᔅᑎᓯᓃ / Mistisinî

The Cree Nation of Mistissini or “Eeyouch” (big rock), is one of the inland communities located along the shore of what is now known as Lake Mistassini, Québec.

Cree - nêhiyawak (Plains)

A people of the northern Great Plains whose territory extends through what is now known as Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Montana.

Cree - Saāwithiniwak (Woodland)

The Saāwithiniwak or Woodland Cree, are the largest Indigenous group in what is now known as northern Alberta.

Dene - Deh Gah Got'ie

A Dene people whose territory is the Great Slave Lake region, in what is now known as the Northwest Territories, and extending into northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta.

Dënësųłınë́ (Chipewyan)

A Dene people whose territory is the Great Slave Lake region, in what is now known as the Northwest Territories, and extending into northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta.

Dene - Gwich'in (Dinjii Zhuh)

The Gwich’in are a Dene people whose territory is the northwestern part of what is now known as the Northwest Territories and into Alaska.

Dule - Guna

The Guna people’s territory of what is now known as eastern Panama and northwestern Colombia. They call themselves Dule, meaning “people” in their language Dulegaya.

Haudenosaunee - Kanienʼkehá꞉ka (Mohawk)

The Mohawk people are the most eastern member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Their territory is primarily intersecting what is now known as Ontario, Québec and New York state.

Hinono'eino (Arapaho)

The Arapaho live on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. Ancestrally they lived in the western Great Lakes region along the Red River Valley in what is now known as Manitoba and Minnesota.

Ho-Chunk (Winnebago)

The Ho-Chunk (Hoocągra or Winnebago) people’s territory includes parts of what is now known as Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois.

Inuit - Inuvialuit

Inuvialuit territory encompasses what is now known as the western Canadian arctic coast from Barter Island in the west to Cape Bathurst in the east, as well as the northern portion of the Mackenzie River Delta.

Inuit - Kalaallit

Kalaallit make up the largest group of the Greenlandic Inuit and are concentrated in Kitaa. It is also a contemporary term in the Greenlandic language for the indigenous people living in Greenland (Greenlandic Kalaallit Nunaat). In the 1850s some Canadian Inuit migrated to Greenland and joined the Polar Inuit communities.

ᓇᔅᑲᐱ - Iyiyiw (Naskapi)

The Naskapi ("people beyond the horizon", ᓇᔅᑲᐱ) are located in what is now known as northern Quebec and Labrador, neighbouring Nunavik. They are closely related to Innu Nation.

Kaska Dena

The Kaska Dena is comprised of five groups of Kaska people living in what is now known as the Northwest Territories, Yukon and British Columbia.

Lenape - Delaware

The Lenape, also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are a Northeastern Woodlands people whose territory was what is now known as the Hudson River Valley: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, but since the 18th century have lived in Oklahoma, Ontario and Wisconsin.

Lenape - Munsee

The Munsee (Nalahii Lunaapewaak) are a Lenape people whose (Lënapehòkink) was along what is now known as the Delaware and Hudson River valleys. Their main community is the Munsee-Delaware Nation in southwestern Ontario.

Lenape - Oklahoma

Also known as the Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma are based in Anadarko, Oklahoma and are a Northeastern Woodlands people, whose traditional territory was what is known as the Hudson River Valley.

omǣqnomenēwak (Menominee)

Menominee (omǣqnomenēwak) are a Northeastern Woodlands people whose territory includes what is now known as Wisconsin and upper Michigan.

Meškwahki·aša·hina (Fox)

The Meskwaki are an Eastern Woodlands people who historically lived along the Saint Lawrence River, their territory encompasses parts of Wisconsin. Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri.

Métis (Red River)

The Métis are a multi-ancestral Indigenous group in Canada and parts of the United States. One the best-known Métis populations began in the Red River region of what is now known as Manitoba.

Niimíipuu (Nez Perce)

Nimíipuu territory covers parts of what is now known as Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho, in an area surrounding the Snake, Grande Ronde River, Salmon and the Clearwater rivers.

Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) Confederacy - Siksiká

The Siksiká are one of the three nations that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy. Their territory extends from what is now known as northern Montana through southern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

O'odham - Akimel (Pima)

The Akimel O'odham people live in an area consisting of what is now known as central and southern Arizona, as well as northwestern Mexico in the states of Sonora and Chihuahua.

Oceti Šakowiŋ (Sioux) - Nakoda

The Nakoda (also known as Stoney or Îyârhe Nakoda) are part of the large Sioux Nation and their territory encompasses large parts of what is now known as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Montana.

Oceti Šakowiŋ (Sioux) - Lakota

The Lakota people are part of the large Sioux Nation. Their territory encompasses parts of what is now known as Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Saskatchewan.

Pomo

The Pomo people’s territory is in what is now known as Northern California, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake.

Northern Shoshone

Northern Shoshone territory is the Snake River Plain of southern Idaho and the northeast area of the Great Basin where what is now known as Idaho, Wyoming and Utah meet.

Tlingit (Lingít Aaní)

Tlingit territory encompasses what is now known as the southeast Alaska coast and the Alexander Archipelago, the far northwestern part of British Columbia and into the southern Yukon.

Tutchone - White River

A First Nation of Upper Tanana, Northern Tutchone, and Southern Tutchone peoples in what is now known as western Yukon.

Wabanaki Confederacy - Abenaki

The Abenaki are a Northeastern Woodlands people and are part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. Their territory is located near the mouth of the Saint-Francis River in what is now known as Quebec.

Wabanaki Confederacy - Mi'kmaq

The Miꞌkmaq (also Mi'gmaq, Lnu, Miꞌkmaw or Miꞌgmaw) are a Northeastern Woodlands people whose territory is the areas now known as Canada's Atlantic Provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec, as well as the northeastern region of Maine.

Wabanaki Confederacy - Pαnawάhpskewi (Penobscot)

The Penobscot (Abenaki: Pαnawάhpskewi) are Northeastern Woodlands people whose territory is primarily in what is now known as Maine.

𐓏𐓘𐓻𐓘𐓻𐓟 - Wažaže (Osage)

The Osage are a Great Plains people whose ancestral territory was in the area now known as the Ohio River valley extending into Kentucky. By the 17th century, many had settled near the Osage River in the western part of present-day Missouri.

X̱aayda (Haida)

The Haida people’s territory is the island of Haida Gwaii off the coast of what is now known as British Columbia and southern Alaska.

If you have a pattern you would like to share, please get in touch.

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