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 12"; neck width 11 1/4"; overall frontal width 30". Yellow oo feather background, with black feather crescent in center of back between two red feather crescents, black half-crescent at front on each side. Base netting of olona fiber with twined tie of same material. Note: In Princess Kawananakoa's will this is referred to as "The Kalakaua cape." King David Kalakaua, 7th King of Hawaii, was born in 1836; died in San Francisco Jan. 29, 1891. A photograph and description of this cape appears in Additional Notes on Hawaiian Feather Work by Wm. T. Brigham. Bishop Museum Memoirs. Vol. VII. No. 1. Fig. 48 and p. 52: ..... "This cape was made during the reign of Kalakaua by Mrs. John Ena (nee Maria Lane) and is thus the latest of the capes here described and there will be no need to search the mele for any legendary history; the birds alone wore it before this King. Some of the birds were brought alive to the palace aviary to furnish a portion of the feathers, and Queen Liliuokalani kept a number there during her reign, feeding them the juice of the sugar cane.""
label: Notes
content: Ahu'ula, feathered cape, olona fiber (Touchardia latifolia), feathers from 'i'iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) and 'o'o (Moho nobilis).
label: Notes
content: Object was on display in National Museum of Natural History exhibit "Na Mea Makamae o Hawai'i - Hawaiian Treasures", 2004-2005. Cape was lent for the exhibit "Royal Hawaiian Featherwork: Na Hulu Ali'i".to the de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) for exhibit August 29, 2015 - Feb. 28, 2016 and to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), for exhibit May 23 - August 7, 2016. Cape was lent to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery for the exhibit "1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions", April 28, 2023 - February 25, 2024.
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: E384231-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Cape
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 30 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 28.57 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 76 cm