FROM CARD: "[Only] ONE HALF SHOWN IN [Anthropology catalogue ledger book] DRAWING."Object has rows of fringe, and painted red and black formline design panels on two borders. Cylindrical red beads on ends of some of fringes.Provenience note: Anthropology catalogue ledger book lists a locality of Alaska for E67931 - 68019. Catalogue cards list a locality of Sitka. Alaska. It is unclear which is correct, though it is probable that the collection was purchased in Sitka.Florence Sheakley and Shirley Kendall, both Tlingit elders, made the following commentsduring the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24, 2017. This object is a cape that comes from Kagwaantan clan and has an identical wolf crest design on both ends.

Described p. 104 in Brown, James Temple. 1883. The whale fishery and its appliances. Washington: Govt. print. off.: "Bear-skin Cloak. Indian name, "Artleitquitl." Worn by natives when whaling or fishing, or in wet weather on shore. 74 by 43 inches. Makah Indians, Cape Flattery, 1883. James G. Swan."

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)