Feather Cape ('ahu 'ula)

Maker: Unknown

Audio Guides

Ruth Barnes, Curator

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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.

Medium

Featherwork

Dimensions

23 × 23 11/16 in. (58.4 × 60.1 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Harrison F. Bassett in memory of his wife Elizabeth Ives Bassett and her brother Arthur Noble Brown

Accession Number

1941.54

Culture
Classification
Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance

Provenance

Queen Kaahumanu of Hawaii (ca. 1772–1832); given to Lucia Ruggles Holman (1793–1886), about 1821 (on loan to the Bishop Museum, the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1918); by descent to Elizabeth Ives Bassett and Harrison F. Bassett; given to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1941
Bibliography
  • James Prosek and Edith Devaney, James Prosek: Art, Artifact, Artifice, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2020), 26, pl. 4
Object copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

capes (outerwear), clothing

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