Silk textile (Lamba)
date: label: Accession Date
content: 19 Mar 1899
name: label: Donor Name
content: President Grover Cleveland
notes: label: Notes
content: IDENTIFIED AS "PROBABLY IMERINA" BY MUSEUM STAFF. ENTERED IN ORIGINAL ACCESSION RECORD AS ONE OF TWO 'EMBOSSED LINEN TABLE COVERS' [which is incorrect-- these are neither "embossed", nor linen, nor table covers].
label: Notes
content: From Card: "Silk and thread cotton. Presented [in 1886] by the Queen of Madagascar [Ranavalona III] to President Cleveland and by his direction deposited in the USNM. Received from J. Howard Clark. / A white hand-woven robe made of three long strips sewn together. Elaborate geometrical pattern in white silk. Very fine workmanship... / This specimen was examined by experts at the Textile Museum on April 1, 1966, who declared it to be made of spun silk, and not to contain any cotton in the weaving".
label: Notes
content: This lamba is discussed at length in "Objects as Envoys: Cloth, Imagery, and Diplomacy in Madagascar", edited by Christine Mullen Kreamer and Sarah Fee, especially pages 103-106, and photos on p 94, 96, 107, and 110. From the chapter by Mary Jo Arnoldi (p 104): "The Malagasy make clear distinctions among their textile types and have an elaborate textile vocabulary." She says this lamba is a "lamba akotofahana", and she quotes Reverend J. Richardson's 1885 Malagasy-English dictionary for a definition: "a native made silk cloth on which designs are woven". This lamba is described as "woven from undyed, cream-colored silk, and its motifs, too, were created using undyed, cream-colored silk threads. To finish the warp ends, [the weaver] used a decorative knotting technique that is found in many silk cloths of this period... [it is] woven from a vairety of [native] silk known as 'landikely'...(Borocera madagascariensis)"
label: Record Last Modified
content: 21 Apr 2025
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Madagascar, Africa
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Merina
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 021722
label: USNM Number
content: E165581-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Textile
physicalDescription: label: Width
content: 162 cm
label: Length
content: 254 cm