Woman's Skirt, Fibre

Item number E386547-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

PROBABLY MADE OF FINELY TWISTED TWO-PLY CATTAIL (TYPHA LATIFOLIA) LEAF CORD - *SEE* A TIME OF GATHERING BY ROBIN K. WRIGHT, 1991, P. 34, 40, 48.A similar Chinook skirt, from Lewis and Clark, is in collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, # PM 99-12-10/52990. The Peabody Museum website notes that Lewis and Clark "... described at length the unique twined cordage skirts that women in the lower Columbia River area made from cedar bark or cattail leaves, which were valuable commodities in local trade networks." Peabody Museum curator Castle McLaughlin has noted that the Catlin cordage skirts E73291, E73306 and E386547 have red paint applied to them, but this is not typical for these types of skirts. The red paint may have been applied by George Catlin?During the cataloguing of quillwork E386582B in 1948, a tag was found with it that stated "From a Lewis and Clark Chinook Skirt in Catlin Coll". Curator John C. Ewers determined that the tag did not actually belong with E386582B. It is possible that the tag might instead have been associated with Chinook skirts E73291, E73306 or E386547. This tag has not currently been located. Nor can the source of the possible ID of a Chinook skirt in the Catlin collection to Lewis and Clark be determined.