Unknown Maker, Native North American

Naskapi hunters have worn painted coats since at least the 17th century, when they were first recorded by Champlain. The coat, made and painted for a hunter by his wife according to designs that he had dreamed would give him power during the hunt, was symbolic of the deep dependence of the hunters of the North on the caribou and of a desire to treat the caribou well so that good hunts might continue. Like all of the extant coats, this one echoes the shape of European fashion of its date, but the triangular gusset in the back represents the Magic Mountain where the Lord of the caribou lived and whence he sent forth the caribou to be caught by the hunter, and is the source of the coat's power. The coat was collected by the famous ethnologist Frank G. Speck.