Feather Cape
date: label: Accession Date
content: 14 Jan 1947
name: label: Donor Name
content: Princess Abigail W. Kawananakoa
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Center length 15 1/2"; width at neck 6 1/4"; overall frontal width 20". Yellow oo feather background, with one red half-crescent over a black half-crescent on each side of front opening. Base netting of olona fiber with braided neck ties of same material. Note: In Princess Kawananakoa's will this is referred to as "The Kamakahelai cape." A photograph and description of this cape appear in Additional Notes on Hawaiian Feather Work by Wm. T. Brigham. Bishop Museum Memoirs. Vol. VII. No. 1. Fig. 50 and p. 54. Kamakahelei was chiefess of Kauai when Captain Cook arrived in 1778. "Whether the cape ever belonged to the famous chiefess or was simply named as a memorial of a famous ancestor in the family of the Queen Kapiolani is not recorded.""
label: Notes
content: Ahu'ula, feathered cape, olona fiber (Touchardia latifolia), feathers from 'i'iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) and 'o'o (Moho nobilis).
label: Record Last Modified
content: 21 Apr 2025
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Hawaii (Hawaiʻi), United States, Polynesia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Hawaiian (Kanaka ʻŌiwi, Kanaka Maoli)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 170851
label: USNM Number
content: E384230-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Cape
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 39.4 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 15.88 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 51 cm