Feather Cape

Object Details

Donor Name

Princess Abigail W. Kawananakoa

From card: "Center length 12"; neck width 11 1/4"; overall frontal width 30". Yellow oo feather background, with black feather crescent in center of back between two red feather crescents, black half-crescent at front on each side. Base netting of olona fiber with twined tie of same material. Note: In Princess Kawananakoa's will this is referred to as "The Kalakaua cape." King David Kalakaua, 7th King of Hawaii, was born in 1836; died in San Francisco Jan. 29, 1891. A photograph and description of this cape appears in Additional Notes on Hawaiian Feather Work by Wm. T. Brigham. Bishop Museum Memoirs. Vol. VII. No. 1. Fig. 48 and p. 52: ..... "This cape was made during the reign of Kalakaua by Mrs. John Ena (nee Maria Lane) and is thus the latest of the capes here described and there will be no need to search the mele for any legendary history; the birds alone wore it before this King. Some of the birds were brought alive to the palace aviary to furnish a portion of the feathers, and Queen Liliuokalani kept a number there during her reign, feeding them the juice of the sugar cane.""

Ahu'ula, feathered cape, olona fiber (Touchardia latifolia), feathers from 'i'iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) and 'o'o (Moho nobilis).

Object was on display in National Museum of Natural History exhibit "Na Mea Makamae o Hawai'i - Hawaiian Treasures", 2004-2005. Cape was lent for the exhibit "Royal Hawaiian Featherwork: Na Hulu Ali'i".to the de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) for exhibit August 29, 2015 - Feb. 28, 2016 and to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), for exhibit May 23 - August 7, 2016. Cape was lent to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery for the exhibit "1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions", April 28, 2023 - February 25, 2024.

Record Last Modified

21 Apr 2025

Specimen Count

1

Culture

Hawaiian (Kanaka ʻŌiwi, Kanaka Maoli)

Accession Date

14 Jan 1947

Accession Number

170851

USNM Number

E384231-0

Object Type

Cape

Length - Object

30 cm

Width - Object

28.57 cm

76 cm

Place

Hawaii (Hawaiʻi), United States, Polynesia

See more items in

Anthropology

NMNH - Anthropology Dept.

Topic

Ethnology

Record ID

nmnhanthropology_8419351

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/31d450995-9378-4969-8068-27619e207ec8