Exhibit Label

Before canvas and muslin were available to Westcoast artists, ceremonial robes painted with designs from family stories were made of dressed skin or woven yellow cedar bark. But almost as popular as the iron brought by the first Europeans was cloth of all kinds. When they learned that cloth was in demand, many early traders quickly traded away all their ships' spare canvas, some of it as sails for canoes and some made for clothing. By the later nineteenth century, when this robe was made, most painted Westcoast dancing blankets were made of light canvas or muslin, as were many of the great painted curtains that hung in ceremonial houses. A proud thunderbird spreads over the blanket. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)