According to Schmitter, a Captain in the US Army stationed in Alaska and Yukon in the early 1900s, Porcupine quills, which are used for decorating their clothing, were dyed red by boiling in cranberry juice, or blue by boiling in huckleberry juice. When any quills were found which were pure white, they were left so. Various coloured flowers were also boiled and their colouring matter used in dyeing quills. Small geometrical figures were made by sewing flattened-out quills to a backing of skin, and long stripes were made by rolling the quills into spirals about a sixteenth of an inch in diameter and sewing them side by side. The backs of mittens and insteps of the moccasins were decorated with these quills. Flat strings of caribou skin one-fourth of an inch wide were sometimes wound with porcupine quills. These strings were either sewed to, or tied about the coat wrists and about the breeches below the knees. In Mishler and Simeone, 2004, pg 180.
Photo: Canadian Museum of Civilization published in Thompson and Kritsch, 2005.