CMC VII-A-235

Chilkat blankets were woven from mountain goat wool and cedar bark. They were the specialty of the Chilkat tribe of the Tlingit, whose territory was at the mouth of the Chilkat River in southeast Alaska. This group refined the style to its highest level in the late nineteenth century, but it had initially been developed among the Tsimshian-speaking people who lived along the Skeena and Nass Rivers on the mainland and had easy access to mountain goats in their hunting territories.

CMC VII-A-132

Early explorers like Captain James Cook collected cedar bark capes decorated with small amounts of goat's wool; not until the early nineteenth century did full Chilkat-style blankets appear in collections.

CMC VII-C-2099

Another popular item of clothing in the late nineteenth century was a cloth tunic with a single crest on the front and sometimes another crest on the back. The most prestigious kind was the woven Chilkat tunic, which probably preceded the cloth one. The Chilkat tunic, like the blanket, was a specialty of the Tlingit.

Purchase a Chilkat souvenir in the Cyberboutique