Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 17, 1990 TAG: 9005170322
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Powhatan's Mantle, a royal robe an Indian chief would have worn, is believed to have belonged to the famous Indian chief Powhatan who met Captain John Smith when Jamestown was settled, said Thomas E. Davidson. Davidson is the chief curator at Jamestown Settlement on the site of the original colony.
The settlement began displaying the mantle May 11.
"This is the most important single artifact that survived from this initial contact period, outside of the Spanish Colonial domination," he said. "Very little survived from this period, 1600 to 1650."
This also is the first time since the 17th century that the mantle has left England, Davidson said. By 1638, the mantle belonged to John Tradescant, a prominent 17th-century collector and royal gardener to King Charles I. His collection eventually formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, which is lending the mantle to Jamestown Settlement, Davidson said.
"It's considered an honor to be the first foreign museum to borrow Powhatan's Mantle," Davidson said.
In April, the settlement opened three new permanent galleries which include murals showing life in England and the New World in the 17th century.
"It's a nice thing to have it back," said Gregory Waselkov, an archaeologist at the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile.
Scholars can't prove that the Powhatan that schoolchildren read about actually wore or even owned the mantle, Davidson said.
Anthropologist Christian Feest, who has written about the Powhatan Indians and the mantle, writes that the mantle was likely to have been displayed in a religious building - not worn. Feest also questions the mantle's association with the chief, who died in 1618, and notes that the first mention of the mantle in England does not occur until almost 20 years later.
But Waselkov said the earliest mentions of the mantle indicate it was worn, and by Powhatan.
"Powhatan is supposed to have given presents to an English captain who sent items back to England," Waselkov said. "They included articles of clothing."
The chief's actual name was Wahunsunacock and Powhatan was a title meaning paramount chief, Davidson said. Research shows that run-of-the-mill Indians didn't wear mantles, he said. The size of this one - 7 1/2 feet by 5 1/2 feet - indicates it would have been worn by an important chief, if not Powhatan himself.
"There's a very strong case to be made that an average person wouldn't have owned this garment," he said. "It was someone important. It was possibly one of the powhatans, Wahunsunacock or his brother, Opechancanough.
"All we have is, ever since 1638, the mantle has been attributed to Powhatan. There's no doubt it was an artifact of the Powhatan Indians collected prior to 1638."
The mantle is in good condition, considering its age, he said. A number of beads on the lower part have been lost, but enough remain to reconstruct the original design.
The mantle is made of four white-tail deer hides sewn together with sinew to form a larger piece of leather. Powhatan's wives - he had a couple dozen - may have made it, Davidson said. Thousands of shell beads depict a man flanked by two animals and surrounded by 34 separate circular designs.
Powhatan controlled 32 to 34 tribes. "The theory I like best is it's a symbolic claim by the Powhatan of his control of the tribes of the Virginia coastal plain," Davidson said.
"It's merely a symbol of a large chiefdom, a large empire, that stands in vivid opposition to the English opposition that's trying to impose itself on him," said James Axtell, professor of humanities at William and Mary.
"The fact that it ends up in England in an Oxford museum is both symbolic of the subjection he was going to experience and somewhat ironic because he gave it voluntarily. I like the irony because he gave his mantle and an old pair of moccasins in return for the elaborate ceremony the English did for him to make him a vassal of King James The First. You don't know whether Powhatan was putting him on, showing his disgust, or a piece of native politeness."
by CNB