- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Snow cloak made from bundles of grass attached to an underlaying net of plaited grass. [FB 18/12/2014]
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Japanese
- Person
- Maker Unknown Maker
- Field collector Unknown Collector
- PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection
- Date / Period
- Date made: Possibly before 1878
- Date collected
- ?Prior to 1878
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1884
- Materials and processes
- Material Grass Fibre Plant, Material Net Textile, Process Netted, Process Plaited
- Dimensions
- Width: max 770 mm, Length: max 990 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1884.90.8
- Research and responses
JG Wood 1870 Natural History of Man: Australia etc p852 'In Japanese pictures certain curious figures may be seen, looking as if human beings had been wrapped in a bundle of rushes. This strange costume is the snow-cloak of the ordinary Japanese, and is shown in detail in the accompanying illustration. For mere rain the Japanese generally wear a sort of overcoat made of oiled paper, very thin, nearly transparent, and very efficient, though it is easily torn. But when a snow storm comes on, the Japanese endues another garment, which is made in a way equally simple and effective. A sort of skeleton is made of network, the meshes being about two inches in diameter. Upon each point of the mesh is tied a bunch of vegetable fibre, like very fine grass, the bundles being about as thick as an ordinary pencil where they are tied, and spreading towards the ends. The garment thus made is exceedingly light, and answers its purposes in the most admirable manner. The bunches of fibres overlapping each other like the tiles of a house, keep the snow far from the body, while any snow that may melt simply runs along the fibres and drops to the ground. To wet this snow-cloak through is almost impossible, even the jet of a garden-engine having little effect upon it except when quite close, while no amount of snow would be able to force a drop of water through the loose texture of the material'. [AP Leverhulme project on founding collection 1995-1998]
1884.90.8
Snow cloak made from bundles of grass attached to an underlaying net of plaited grass. [FB 18/12/2014]
1884.90.8
Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
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