- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Cloak. Made of flax. With black pendant strings and borders of black 'flax' tufts mingled with green, red & yellow wool (imitating feather bordering).
- Long description
- Korowai, a dress cloak with ornamental cord tags. The kaupapa (body of the cloak) is woven from undyed muka (processed New Zealand flax/Phormium Tenax) The black dyed muka tags (hukahuka) decorate the kaupapa and create a thick fringe at the neck edge. Looped black/brown dyed muka border with several sections of wool incorporated. Wool also in short horizontal lines intermittently disbursed over the kaupapa. [ROH 31/01/2012] The cloak has double pair twined rows. There are two sections of shaping rows plus a solitary row in the bottom third. [MJD 20/07/2010]
- Cultural groups
- Māori
- Person
- Field collector Charles Smith
- PRM source The Executors of the Charles Smith Estate
- PRM source Alfred T. Collier
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1869?, uncertain
- Date collected
- 1860 - 1869?
- Acquisition information
- Purchased: 1923
- Materials and processes
- Material Flax (NZ) Plant, Material String, Material Wool Yarn Animal, Process Twisted, Process Twined Woven, Process Finger Woven, Process Dyed
- Dimensions
- Width: max 1350 mm, Length: max 1130 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1923.87.161
- Research and responses
According to Hamilton ('Maori Art', Wellington: The New Zealand Institute, 1896, p. 280, 285 & 317), a korowai is a "mat ornamented with black twisted thrums [of fibre]". It is made with fine quality flax beaten out with a stone patu, and is generally worn by females. It is part of the generic group known as Kakahu (fine flax cf. Mai for rough cloaks of inferior material). [CF 15/3/2001]
1923.87.161
Cloak. Made of flax. With black pendant strings and borders of black 'flax' tufts mingled with green, red & yellow wool (imitating feather bordering).
1923.87.161
Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
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