robe; cloak; blanket

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Object Type: robe; cloak; blanket
Museum number: Am,NWC.53
Description: Robe, cloak (with fringe), ceremonial blanket made of bark (cedar), fibre (nettle), fur (sea otter), wool (mountain goat).
Production ethnic group
Production date: 1800 (before)
Findspot: Found/Acquired: North America
Materials: cedar bark; nettle fibre; sea otter fur; mountain goat wool; cedar root (?)
Technique: woven; painted
Dimensions: Length: 116 centimetres; Width: 155 centimetres
Curator's comments: Evelyn Vanderhoop. S twisted twine fringe. Fringe probably pounded cedar root, not bark.
Bibliographic references: King 2000a / Nuu-chah-nulth Art at the British Museum (fig.3, p.262); King 1999 / First Peoples, First Contacts: Native Peoples of North America (p.131); Samuel 1987 / The Raven's Tail (fig.430, p.154); King 1981 / Artificial Curiosities of the Northwest Coast of America (col.pl.9); Gustafson 1980 / Salish Weaving (fig.16, p.28); Bancroft-Hunt & Forman 1979 / People of the Totem; The Indians of the Pacific Northwest (p.53); Cobbe 1979 / Cook's Voyages and Peoples of the Pacific (no. 84, p. 97); Coe 1977 / Sacred Circles: Two Thousand Years of North American Indian Art (349); Gunther 1972 / Indian Life on the Northwest Coast of North America: As Seen by the Early Explorers and Fur Traders during the Last Decades of the Eighteenth Century (app.1:19); Inverarity 1950 / Art of the Northwest Coast Indians (No 8); Dalton & Joyce 1910 / Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections (Plate I.); Arima & Dewhirst 1990 / Nootkans of Vancouver Island (fig.5 c); Feest 1980 / Native Arts of North America (fig.63)
Location: Not on display
Exhibition history: Exhibited: 1976-1977 7 Oct-16 Jan, London, The Hayward Gallery, Sacred Circles: 2,000 Years of North American Indian Art 1977 16 Apr-19 Jun, Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Sacred Circles: 2,000 Years of North American Indian Art 1979-1980 15 Feb-29 Sept, London, Museum of Mankind; Captain Cook in the South Seas 1999 25 Jun-2006?, BM Room 26; Gallery of North America, Case: "The Mowachaht of Vancouver Island" 2017 23 Feb-27 Aug, London, BM, "Where the Thunderbird Lives"
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1753-1800
Acquisition notes: Collected during one of Cook's voyages.
Department: Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Registration number: Am,NWC.53
Additional IDs: CDMS number: Am17??D8.53 (old CDMS no.); Miscellaneous number: Am1972Q1.43
Conservation: Treatment: 20 Feb 2017; Treatment: 11 May 1977; Treatment: 27 May 1999

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