Miʼkmaw quillwork is mosaic, not embroidery. Dyed porcupine quills are set shoulder to shoulder into birchbark, their ends pushed through holes punched in the sheet — the bark is a pierced substrate, not a stitched hide. That single fact separates it from Plains quillwork and governs every surface here.

Because each quill is a discrete unit of fixed length, colour never blends. It steps. Fields radiate from a centre or ring out in concentric bands, and the eight-pointed star sits at the middle of the tradition — a living motif, not decoration borrowed. After 1865 aniline dyes brought pink, blue and lavender into the vocabulary, and the palette has been strong ever since.