Appliqued Dance Tunic
date: label: Accession Date
content: 26 Jul 1888
label: Collection Date
content: 1888
name: label: Collector
content: James G. Swan
label: Donor Name
content: James G. Swan
notes: label: Notes
content: Object has two catalogue cards. From older card: "Button Blanket, Dancing Shirt of "Bear Skin." Design - the totem of the bear. Very fine. Made of red wool, with design outlined in small white buttons." From newer card: "Appliqued tunic. Collector's tag: 'Dancing shirt of 'Bear Skin', a Skidegate chief of Haida Indians, Queen Charlotte Islands. July 1888. The design is the totem of the bear and is a fine specimen of Indian work. The effect when worn at night with torch or lamp light is very fine. Difficult to obtain. $25.00.' Red wool applique on dark blue blanket cloth with shell button outlining."
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on the artifact http://www.alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=645, retrieved 5-6-2012: Tunic, Haida. This late nineteenth-century dance tunic is made of red wool appliqué on black wool cloth and shows a bear crest design outlined in small shell buttons. The sleeves are red cotton with lace ruffles at the cuffs. Collector James Swan purchased it from Bear Skin, a Skidegate chief. Haida artists invented appliqué dance blankets and tunics around 1850, ornamenting them with dentalium shells, mother of pearl buttons, and squares of abalone shell. Florence Davidson said that they were first made in Masset after a missionary forbade the raising of totem poles; the blankets and tunics were an alternative way for people to show their clan crests.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 24 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Skidegate, Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) / Graham Island, British Columbia, Canada, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Haida
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 020957
label: USNM Number
content: E129984-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Tunic
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 104 cm