Dance Apron - Shaman's Blanket Waist Robe

Item number E224417-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

FROM CARD: "LOAN LOWIE MUSEUM 12/31/1964, LOAN RETURNED FEB 15, 1966. LOAN GLENBOW NOV 13, 1987, LOAN RETURNED NOV 25, 1988. ILLUS.: THE SPIRIT SINGS CATALOGUE, GLENBOW-ALBERTA INST., 1987, #N16, P. 136." Illus. Fig. 8, p. 28, and Fig. H, after p. 48 in The Chilkat Dancing Blanket, by Cheryl Samuel, University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. There is a photo of this object on display in the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology exhibits at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Missouri, 1904, USNM Negative No. 16465. See Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Box 62B, Folder 12, Image No. SIA_000095_B62B_F12_010 .Emmons' handwritten list in accession file describes this object in this way: "No. 9. "Kate" - A Chilkat blanket waist robe which was found in the possession of an old shaman of the "Tahltan" people living at Tahltan 100 miles up the Stickheen [Stikine] River from its mouth. It was originally made at Chilkat (the village of Kluckwan) [a.k.a. Klukwan] and was carried in trade to Wrangel [Wrangell] + traded up the river. The design represents a beaver sitting up [,] it is both realistic and conventional, the leather fringe is hung with the upper + lower bills of the sea parrot or puffin. It was the only piece of clothing worn by the shaman in his practice."Fringe includes pendant puffin beaks and thimbles.