Mississaugan birch-bark basket (mokuk) and lid, with the basket exterior decorated with quillwork triangles and the lid with quillwork leaves; the lid has a leather thong handle wrapped with quills. Inside is a piece of wrapped sweetgrass or another fine twine of root with wrapped coloured quills at intervals.

The hourglass and zigzag motifs were somewhat archaic for the mid-nineteenth century, being more commonly found on eighteenth-century medicine bags and formal garments. By 1860, these designs had typically been replaced by floral motifs. Their use here is redolent of the symbols for the thunderbird and underwater panther - spirits of the upper and lower worlds respectively.