A unique 19th-century Maori feather cloak, created from thousands of green parrot feathers woven into a grass cloth, has been put on display at Scotland’s new £27m Perth Museum.
The cape is a special object for the descendants of its makers: Maori people were invited to Perth to pray and sing over it, as it was carefully packed for transport, and traveled to the British Museum in London, where conservation work was carried out. A closed Facebook group enabled exchanges between two museums in the UK, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in New Zealand and Māori communities.
The cape is in Perth’s collections from the 19th century. from the mid-19th century and is believed to be the only complete surviving example. kakāpō clothes, a cloak woven from the feathers of kakapo parrots. Such garments were always rare and precious, made for ceremonial wear.
Kakapos are the largest parrot species. Nocturnal and flightless, they forage and breed at ground level, characteristics that have contributed to their near extinction. Birds were valued and kept as pets, but Maori also hunted them for food.
However, they were not native rodents and it was the arrival of Europeans with dogs that nearly exterminated them. In the wild, they survive today only on a few small islands that have been cleared of predators.
200 years of Scottish connection
The cape was acquired by David Ramsay, a Perth doctor who went to Australia as a ship’s surgeon in 1823 and never returned. Instead he became a prosperous farmer and dealer and collector of Australian and New Zealand antiquities. It is not known whether he bought the cloak in Australia or New Zealand, but it was part of a large collection sent in 1842 to the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society, the predecessor of the present museum.
Mark Hall, head of collections at Perth Museum, and curator Anna Zwagerman believe that the 19th-century It consists of thousands of tiny green feathers that completely cover a fabric woven from local plant fibers. Zwagerman says that when he first saw it, he was afraid to lift it from the storage box in case it disintegrated in his hands: it was packed with a feather and a bag of broken fibers, and it was already loose.
Conservation experts at the British Museum are recognized leaders in feather work, and thanks to a UK Partnership Knowledge Share project, Zwag-erman spent weeks in London working with the team. Strips of mulberry paper and tiny fibers were dyed and glued to hold the broken quill shafts and shredded fibers – over 100 hours of work with magnifying glasses and scalpels. A special mount was made to hold the cape on display after examination of the wear marks determined that it was strapped to one shoulder and could only be worn for a very short period of time given its remarkable condition.
The museum’s new building, a former Edwardian town hall converted by Dutch company Mecanoo, was due to open on March 30 as we went to press, with star objects returned to Scotland in 1996, including the Stone of Scone crown stone. its first home in Westminster Abbey, and now in Perth for the first time in 700 years. The conversion was funded by local authorities and £10 million from the Tay Cities Region Deal regional investment program jointly funded by the UK and Scottish governments. The city’s fine art collection will now occupy all of the space in the museum’s former home, renamed the Perth Art Gallery.
Despite the special condition of the cape, there is no official refund claim. A few years ago, the Perth Museum returned two tattooed human heads, one collected by Ramsay, to the New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Wellington, and communications between the two museums are now regular and warm.
Awhina Tamarapa, a Maori consultant curator based in New Zealand, said the project showed the importance of employing specialists from the following communities. Hopes for future collaboration include a desire to one day loan the cape back to New Zealand.
• The Perth Museum will open on March 30 free entry to the permanent galleries
