Dance Tunic
date: label: Accession Date
content: 6 Apr 1904
label: Collection Date
content: 1904
name: label: Collector
content: Lt. George T. Emmons
label: Donor Name
content: Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "A CHILKAT BLANKET MODIFIED INTO THE FORM OF A RUSSIAN PRIESTLY CHASUBEL. SPECIMEN IS GOOD AND RARE. LOAN: CROSSROADS SEP 22, 1988, LOAN RETURNED JAN 21, 1993. ILLUS: CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS CATALOGUE; FIG. 8, P. 16." There is a photo of this object on display in the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology exhibits at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Missouri, 1904, USNM Negative No. 16465. See Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Box 62B, Folder 12, Image No. SIA_000095_B62B_F12_010 . Illus. Fig. D and E after p. 48 in The Chilkat Dancing Blanket, by Cheryl Samuel, University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. Per Repatriation Office research, as reported in the Tlingit case report (Hollinger et al. 2005:71-73), the Chilkat identification cannot be confirmed as a cultural affiliation, even though the tunic is a "Chilkat style" of manufacture.
label: Notes
content: In a letter filed in Accession 41221, which is dated 17 June 1903, and written from Killisnoo, Alaska, Emmons appears to describe an object for sale which may be this tunic, and asks the Smithsonian if they would be interested in it. He describes a "Chilkat blanket armless robe or shirt."
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=299, retrieved 11-29-2011: Tunic, Tlingit, Southeast Alaska This Chilkat [style] tunic depicts the Killer Whale. Its head takes up the lower half, including large eyes above a wide mouth and row of teeth. Two round nostrils appear in the center of the mouth. The whale's blowhole is indicated by the spirit face at the center of the shirt; and its body, by the larger face directly above that. The flukes spread across the top part of the shirt and smaller designs along the sides show the fins. Waves woven on the back refer to the ancient migration of the Dakl'aweidee, owners of the Killer Whale crest. "Keet áyá yáat. (This is the Killer Whale.) Yaa haa Lingídee, kéi haa nasdagee. (Representing Tlingits, when we were migrating.) On the back, there are waves to remind them of when we were migrating from down south." - Anna Katzeek (Tlingit), 2005.
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Description: The sleeveless tunic is woven with cedar bark and white wool warps and white, black yellow and blue weft yarns in formline designs. Materials and Construction: The garment was constructed as a tunic. The catalog notes that stylistically the dancing blanket form may have been modified to the tunic form based on a Russian religious vestment worn at the Mass, called a chasuble. The tunic is sleeveless with a front and back panel. The PL side is stitched closed excluding an 24 cm long armhole. The PR side is open from shoulder to hem. The 24 cm long neckline is rounded. The bottom of both panels is fringed with wrapped warp fringes. The front and back panels are constructed using warps of cedarbark wrapped with undyed white goat hair. The front panel is entirely embellished with formlines designs using black, yellow and blue dyed weft yarns and undyed white weft yarns. The back panel is largely woven in a slightly open weave using undyed white wefts. These white fields are separated by three wide black and yellow bands. Each band has four evenly spaced yellow wavy lines on a black field. There is a small spirit figure woven at the neck using yellow for the face with blue flanking ovoids. The neck opening also has blue and black borders. Across the bottom is a black and yellow checkerboard band. The identification of materials is from written sources and the materials have not been identified by this conservator.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Jun 2023
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tlingit
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 042526
label: USNM Number
content: E229789-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Tunic
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 101 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 71 cm
label: Height - Object
content: 2.5 cm