This small circular leather flask is stitched with fine sinew. One surface face is decorated with incised demilune and circular patterns. The flask has the remnant of a leather thong handle. It could possibly have been used for storing lead shot (pellets for shotguns) or tobacco. Tobacco was an important crop in the region later known as New Mexico, desired by both European settlers and Indigenous communities. In 1765, Spain declared a monopoly on the growing of tobacco, which was forbidden in New Mexico. The loss of the crop endangered relations with the Comanches and thus endangered the security of the entire colony. By the American period, which began in the mid-19th century, tobacco was being grown in great quantities elsewhere in the country, and the expanding railroad system made distribution increasingly efficient and local production less economical than it might have been earlier.