The ethnographic artifacts deposited by Father Friderik Baraga in 1837 in the Carniolian Provincial Museum of Ljubljana is of substantial importance for the local and temporal attribution of regional styles of the Native arts in the Great Lakes region of North America. Since Baraga's contacts with Ottawa and Chippewa Indians between 1831 and 1836 are well documented, and since additional information can be derived from various lists of the objects prepared at the time of their accession, the collection can help to shed light on other, less well documented materials.
A general discussion of the problems inherent in the interpretation of historically collected ethnographic specimens and their importance for historical ethnography is illustrated by comparative perspectives on selected artifacts from the Baraga collection.