Ravenstail weaving, or Yel-ku uu [Yeil Koowu] (‘the raven’s tail’),  is a generationally-transmitted art form that holds a tremendous amount of cultural knowledge and social prestige in its communities, so named due to its resemblance to raven tail feathers. Beginning in the Tsimshiam culture, it was preserved and retained by the Haida and the Tlingit. The tradition was passed through matrilines and was predominantly reserved for women. This style of weaving is very complex and has been likened to basket weaving by many craftspeople. One of the most important components of its creation was the 6,000 year old practice of twining, where strands of goat fur and bark are twisted together. In Tlingit basketweaving, this forms watertight seals that make the baskets long-lived and functional. Ravenstail robes use primarily bold geometric designs with a limited color palette, and every thread end is worked into the piece.

The 18th century is widely regarded to have been the so-called “golden age” of Ravenstail robes, but that golden age wasn’t to last. Due to the rapid and devastating effects of colonialism in the Northwest, the craft went through a period of stagnation 200 years long. In the 70s, a non-native weaver named Cheryl Samuels and a Haida weaver named Delores Churchill created the first robe since the decline, and since then Native weavers have made leaps and bounds in reclaiming and revitalizing the art.

During this stagnation time, there were a few robes that came in to the possession of Western collections and museums. One such robe is the “Swift Blanket,” made around the mid 1700s, and it is the only complete historical Ravenstail robe we know of. Evelyn Vanderhoop provides wonderful insight on the robe: it would have been worn by a chief and used to convey multiple characters and stories with the two sides of the robe, while also functioning as a symbol of the leader’s authority. “The Swift robe threads together a duality that is found in the ancestor stories and early chiefs’ fashions at the time of contact,” as Vanderhoop puts it. This speaks directly to how Ravenstail robes were an integral part of the organization of society and the dissemination and transfer of knowledge and stories within that society.

Made from mountain goat wool. Named after its collector, Benjamin Swift. Now at the the Peabody Museum at Harvard University.