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NORTH AMERICAN, Pacific Northwest, Tlingit, Chilkat
Ceremonial Robe
Wool and cedar bark
55 x 84”
Gift of Dr. Harvey Slatin 1979.22

The Chilkat people, who lived near the Alaska-Canada border, created robes that were highly valued as trade objects, worn for ceremonial practices, or hung outside grave houses as symbols of esteem and respect. This robe, with its nearly symmetrical design, is an excellent example of its type, with symbols of conventional totem animals and forms that would have been familiar to all tribal members. The central motif may be interpreted as a diving whale with its wide-spaced eyes at the lower corners, the body with flippers in the center, and the upturned tail at the top. Some scholars have interpreted the prominent face at the center of these diving whale images as the mammal’s blowhole. The mirror-image side panels are iconographically ambiguous.