Salish blanket
This is a classic example of a now very rare type of Salish
blanket. The Salish are a Northwest American Coast people (present
parts of Washington State and British Columbia). They are highly
accomplished weavers in a range of materials.
Blankets of this type were the prized possessions of high ranking
males and females. Theses blankets represented readily
transportable wealth within a seasonally mobile coastal hunting and
fishing society.
The materials used in its weaving include nettle, bark,
mountain-goat wool and wooldog hair. The wooldog or woolly-dog was
a particular breed of dog kept by the Coast Salish specifically for
their hair, to use in weaving blankets. Dog-hair weaving
disappeared quickly after the introduction of machine-made blankets
by British and American trading companies in the early 19th
century. Woolly-dogs became extinct before 1875.
This particular blanket was collected along the Fraser River,
Gulf of Georgia. It is amongst a number of objects collected by
Colin Robertson, a native of Perth (born 1783). Robertson emigrated
to British Columbia, Canada, where he worked in the fur trade. He
donated his collection in 1833, to the Perth Literary &
Antiquarian Society. For a portrait of Colin Robertson see the Canadian Heritage website and the Canadian
Archives and Library website.
The objects collected by Colin Robertson have been used by
Aberdeen University in the research for their project: "Material
Histories: Scots and Aboriginal Peoples in the Canadian Fur Trade",
which you can access at Aberdeen Universitys Material History page.
