Mantle (Powhatan's Mantle)
On display
It was within the territory of a chiefdom of more than 30 tribes, united under the leadership of the powerful paramount chief Wahunsunacock (d. 1618), that the colony of Jamestown was established in Virginia in 1607. This remarkable object dates to this first period of contact between native North American peoples and English colonists.
Once thought to have been a mantle (cloak), it is now considered to have been more likely a hanging consisting of four white-tailed deer hides that have been trimmed and sewn together with sinew. The elaborate shell beadwork decoration consists of a central standing figure, flanked by two opposed four-legged animals in profile that have been interpreted as a mountain lion or a wolf and a white-tailed deer. The circles may represent settlements and the tribes of the chiefdom.
The mantle is listed in the 1656 catalogue of the Tradescant Collection – the founding collection of the Ashmolean – as: ‘Pohatan, King of Virginia’s habit all embroidered with shells, or Roanoke’. Chief Wahunsunacock was known to the English as ‘Chief Powhatan’, after whom the mantle is named. There is no known record of how or when it was acquired by the Tradescants. It might have been collected during a trip to Virginia by the younger John Tradescant in 1637, or it could have been obtained earlier. Among the most widely accepted theories for its origins is that it may have been one of the gifts recorded as being presented by Chief Wahunsunacock to Captain Christopher Newport in 1608 for King James I.
Details
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Title
Mantle (Powhatan's Mantle)
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Associated people
Chief Wahunsunacock (died 1618) (said to have been owned by) -
Associated place
Virginia Colony (Chesapeake Bay) (place of creation) -
Date
17th century (1601 - 1700) -
Material and technique
deer hide with shell bead decoration and sinew
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Object type
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Dimensions
235 cm max. (length)
160 cm max. (width) -
No. of items
1
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Credit line
Presented by Elias Ashmole in 1677, from the Tradescant collection.
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Museum location
Lower ground floor | Gallery 2 | The Ashmolean Story -
Museum department
Antiquities
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Accession no.
AN1685.B.205
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Further reading
MacGregor, Arthur, ed., Tradescant's Rarities: Essays on the Foundation of the Ashmolean Museum 1683 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 12, fig. 19; Pls. VI-VII
Piper, David, and Christopher White, Treasures of the Ashmolean Museum: An Illustrated Souvenir of the Collections, revised edn (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1995), p. 9, illus. p. 8
Hook, Moira, and Arthur MacGregor, England Under the Stuarts: Collections in the Ashmolean Museum from James I to Queen Anne (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2003), 18, illus. 18, Fig. 20
MacGregor, Arthur, A Cabinet of Wonder (Jamestown, 2007), pp.77
Brown, Christopher, Ashmolean: Britain's First Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2009), illus. p.6, 115
Katherine Wodehouse (general editor), The Ashmolean Museum Crossing Cultures Crossing Time (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, 2014), p.32, illus. p.32
