МАЭ № 593-26

Cloak - chilkat

Tlingit

Before 1843

I.G. Voznesenskii's expedition

mountain goat fly, kalan fur, paint

Length with fringe - 200 cm; width with fringe - 130 cm

Rich Tlingit people (chiefs and shamans) wore Chilkat blankets. They were covered with a complex “eye” pattern – geometrical figures with rounded edges. Women made threads by twisting goat down on their laps with their palms. The Tlingit did not have the loom; instead they used a construction that consisted of two poles with a horizontal cross-bar to which threads were attached. Blankets were braided rather than woven. Men drew patterns of wooden planks, and women transferred them onto the blankets. It took not less than half a year to make one Chilkat blanket. They were of great value, and in the first half of the 19th century not every head of a family could afford to have at least one blanket.

Ethnography of America