Royal British Columbia Museum
8809
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Photo courtesy of the Snuneymuxw First Nation
Object: blanket
Use: garment/personal item, potlatch gift
Era: acquired in 1958 (likely late 19th/ early 20th century)
Collector: Harold B. Burnham
Materials: hand-spun mountain goat wool, commercial red cotton
Size/ Dimensions: length: 3.78 metres, width: 1.26 metres, width including fringe: 1.93 metres, thickness: 1.5 centimetres
Collection site: "Koksiliac community" (Hul'q'umin'um'-speaking Cowichan people), according to the notes of collector H.B. Burnham
Current Location/Museum: Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, Canada
Accession Number: 8809
Display Technique: storage
Condition: excellent
The Snuneymuxw women wove thick, wool blankets on looms carved by the men of their community. Blankets could be draped over the shoulders and fastened with a blanket pin, to be worn as a warm garment. Blankets were wrapped around items that needed protection during travel and they were accumulated as a store of wealth. For the Snuneymuxw, the blanket has been one of the keys to the trade and gestures of welcome that take place during important events such as potlatching. Snuneymuxw blankets are usually large enough to wrap around an adult, at least two metres in length.
Many Snuneymuxw blankets are a creamy white, which comes from the un-dyed hair and plant fibres used in the wool. There are several different techniques that rely on alternating the weave to achieve different textures. Blanket 8809 is woven as twill. This means that the weft thread, the left-to-right part of the weave, crosses over and under every two warp threads, the lengthwise part of the weave, in an alternating pattern - a regular weave crosses over every single warp thread instead of every two.
This blanket has plaited tassels along the edges and the weaver has incorporated strips of machine woven red cotton to make large, crossing patterns across the white wool. Some blankets are trimmed with geometric designs, such as triangles and chevrons, using wool dyed with iron-rich bark or mud to make black, roots or lichen to make yellow, and bark or nut husks to make reds and browns.
The blanket portrayed in this section is a Cowichan blanket, but it is very similar to the blankets made by Snuneymuxw weavers.