Chilkat Blanket Math
Friends of the sheldon jackson museum 1993.
Chilkat blanket math. Chilkat blankets artistic masterpieces no single artifact more dramatically evokes the richness of northern northwest coast culture than the chilkat blanket. This post explores one such chilkat blanket in the bowers museum s collections looking at the history craft and provenance of the blanket. During the middle of the 19 th century the tsimshian slowly stopped weaving. Yet there is no evidence to show that it predates european contact on the northwest coast and much to suggest that the blanket as we know it is a nineteenth century development.
In 2017 the story goes jacobsen s daughter convinced her father to give the textile to the tlingit people. The chilkat blanket memoirs of the american museum of natural history volume iii december 1907 page 329. It is unique in that the artist can. Passed down passed away.
He purchased this chilkat in the 1990s from a local dealer. Per the oral tradition of the chilkat tlingit the blankets were first produced by tsimshian tribe of the northwest coast. The chilkat blanket belonged to a seattle based collector named bruce jacobsen. The chilkat blanket symbolises the welfare and position of a person and their family.
The chilkat blanket associated with the chilkat a northern band of tlingit was traded along the northwest coast the blanket was made of mountain goat wool spun over a core of cedar bark string the men hunted the goat constructed the frame on which the weaving was done and painted the design board from which the women who did the weaving took the design. Emmons the basketry of the tlingit and the chilkat blanket reprint edition usa. Check out the burke s holdings of chilkat blankets and consult the following sources. Want to know and see more.
This does not imply that the classic chilkat blanket owes. The blanket was used especially when dancing and the totemistic emblem of the. Due to the labour intensive and long manufacturing process only the wealthiest people could afford them. Chilkat weaving is one of the most complex weaving techniques in the world.
Chilkat weaving can be applied to blankets robes dance tunics aprons leggings shirts vests bags hats and wall hangings. Cheryl samuel the chilkat.