Hello, I'm Ruth Barnes. I'm the Thomas Jaffe Curator of Indo-Pacific Art here at the Yale University Art Gallery.

This cape really has a remarkable history. It was brought from Hawaii to Connecticut in 1822 by Lucia Holman. Lucia was the wife of a missionary doctor, and she and her husband had joined the very first mission to Hawaii, which in 1819 left Connecticut to convert the Islanders to Christianity. Lucia Holman kept a diary throughout the long boat journey and then during the time spent on Hawaii itself. So we know quite a lot about her experiences. Her account is a strange mixture of close observation of Hawaiian customs and practices and also, unfortunately, not much more than disdain for what she considered the primitive ways of the locals. Her husband soon fell out with the missionaries, and the couple was eventually even excommunicated and expelled from the Islands. Lucia, however, had become quite friendly with some of the Hawaiian royal ladies, and she was given this feather cape on her departure by Queen Kamāmalu.

Feather cloaks were the most highly treasured items in Hawaii, and they could only be worn by people of very high status. They were made in different sizes, with the larger ones restricted to the most important people. This cape is relatively small, but it still would've required the feathers of several thousand birds. The feathers were fastened onto a netted plant-fiber base. Women sorted the feathers, and men shaped the actual capes. The most valuable cloaks used the red and yellow feathers of local Hawaiian birds, which were hunted virtually to extinction.