Brooklyn Museum Collection

Alfred T. White Fund

Museum Expedition 1941, Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund

This skirt was made for an adult male. The plain weave, dark blue background is woven with horizontal camelid fiber warps and camelid fiber wefts. Yellow, olive, red and dark green camelid fiber embroidery is used for the alternating colors in the border and the paired bands. Two 'sprang' ties are at each end of the skirt and terminate in long, bulky fringes. Crossed looping is employed at the edges and as the tassel holder (at the base of the fringe). The skirt is incomplete; the left and right sides have been cut but the embroidery area is complete. From Mary Frame's notes: Seven different figures alternate irregularly on the borders and in the paired bands, and it is unusual to have that many different figures represented on the same textile. They are felines and mythical figures, usually shown with a streamer emanating from each side of their heads and often ending with a trophy head being represented. The background color squares alternate regularly, and continuous color lines run on the S and Z slant diagonals. The embroidery style differs from the 3 styles described by Dwyer and Paul (linear, block color and broad line). Here the figures are presented in "silhouette" with little interior detailing other than facial features and pelt markings. One of the figures, the cat standing on two legs (a human stance), also appears on a fragment in the Brooklyn Museum collection (64.114.20).

Alfred W. Jenkins Fund

Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.

Carll H. de Silver Fund

Anonymous gift in memory of Dr. Harlow Brooks

Frank L. Babbott Fund

A. Augustus Healy Fund