- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Kahu kiwi, cloak made of muka (New Zealand flax; Phormium Tenax) covered with kiwi feathers.
- Long description
- Kahu kiwi (kiwi feather cloak). The kaupapa (body of the cloak) is woven from un-dyed muka (processed New Zealand flax; Phormium Tenax). A short muka fringe is located on the neck edge at either side. Ties of muka are also located at the neck edge. There is one green feather on middle of the proper left edge. Dyed black muka yarn has been incorporated down both side edges of the kaupapa. [ROH 31/01/2012]
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Māori
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1887
- Date collected
- 1887
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1901
- Materials and processes
- Material Flax (NZ) Plant, Material Bird Feather, Process Woven, Process Twined Woven, Process Twisted, Process Finger Woven
- Dimensions
- Length: max 1060 mm, Width: max 1500 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1901.33.1
- Research and responses
In 1978, David Simmons recorded the holdings of Māori material in a number of museums in Europe and North America including, in May 1978, the Pitt Rivers Museum. (For copies of his notes and related correspondence, see RDF: Researchers: Simmons.) In 1996, Simmons put together the ‘draft catalogues’ he had prepared, depositing copies in, at least, the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa and the British Museum. The ‘draft catalogue’ of the Māori material in the PRM, which includes photocopies of some of the relevant catalogue index cards and annotations supplied by PRM assistant curator Lynne Williamson in 1982, was included in ‘Draft Catalogues of Maori Material in English Museums II. Prepared by David Simmons from records made in 1978… Compiled in Auckland in 1996’. It is now widely accepted that Simmons’s assertions about the provenance and history of individual Māori objects are not to be trusted without further evidence and/or documentation. Nevertheless, as the entries in this document have been referred in the literature, in July 2016 I obtained from the British Museum scans of the pages devoted to the PRM’s collections (numbered by hand as pages 43 to 62), printing out a copy for the RDF. For the entry for this object, see page 55 (page 11 of Simmons's original list). [JC 28 7 2016]
Alderman Alfred Holt also presented three 'Maori shawls' to the Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum in 1919 (M433.1919.1, M433.1919.2, M433.1919.3). For related correspondence between Jeff Watkin and Jeremy Coote, and a timeline of Holt's life, see RDF. [JC 28 4 2017]
Holt's gifts of Maori cloaks to both Leamington Museum and the PRM are discussed in The Benevolent Despot: Alderman Alfred Holt (1858-1943) and the Foundation of Leamington Art Gallery, by Jeff Watkin (Leamington Spa: Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, 2017). On page 15, Watkin writes: 'In addition to his explorations in the 'Old World', Alfred Holt's travels may have taken him as far afield as New Zealand. This possibility is raised by the Maori cloak and chief's loin cloth that he donated to the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford in 1901 and the three Maori shawls that he gave to Leamington Museum in 1919. There is no definitive evidence [concerning] how Holt acquired them, but the Pitt-Rivers Museum's accessions records refer to their two garments as being "bought in New Zealand in 1887 for £14". This may suggest that they were bought by Holt in person during a visit to New Zealand rather than purchased from a dealer closer to home.' On page 23, in a footnote (number 37) to the above, Watkin writes: 'The cloak and loin cloth are accessioned as 1901.33.1 and 1901.33.2. Jeremy Coote of the Pitt-Rivers Museum suggests that they may have been bought by Holt from a curio dealing shop, for example that founded by James Butterworth at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. See Day, 2005 [i.e. 'James Butterworth and the Old Curiosity Shop, New Plymouth, Taranaki', by Kelvin Day, in Tuhinga: Records of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, no. 16 ( 2005), pp. 93-126]'. On page 52, Watkin writes: 'Prior to the donation of art works in the late 1920s and the 1930s, Alfred Holt had given three Maori shawls to Leamington Museum. These were accessioned in 1919 (cat 111-113). They seem to have been a type of garment in which Holt had a particular interest, as in 1901 he is recorded as donating a Maori cloak and a chief's loin cloth to the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford. All five items may have been bought by Holt from a dealer in New Zealand, as suggested in Chapter 1 [see above]; this, though, is not certain and they may have been bought from a dealer closer to home.' One of the 'shawls' is illustrated on page 52 (cat 111), the others on page 80 (cat 112 and 113). (Copy of publication in RDF.) [JC 9 2 2018]
This Kahu kiwi was viewed by Hokimate Harwood for her doctoral thesis 'Te Reo o Te Kākahu: an ethno-ornithological chronicle of the history and language of Māori feather cloaks' (2022). It is one of 17 feather cloaks in the PRM featured in the international register of Māori feather cloaks produced for her thesis. In this she gives the following description:
'Flax kiwi feather cloak with red and black wool at hem on all sides, and tāniko at base. Spaved double pair twined, brown kiwi feathers with two single light green kākāriki feathers in middle of right-hand side border. W 150cm x H 106cm,' [See Researchers RDF file]
Search terms: Clothing, Textile, Status, Cloak, Status Object