A button blanket is wool wearing blanket embellished with mother-of-pearl buttons, created by Northwest Coastal tribes.

Rather than sleeping equipment

Blanket

A blanket is a type of bedding, generally speaking, a large piece of cloth, intended to keep the user warm, especially while sleeping. Blankets are distinguished from sheets by their thickness and purpose; the thickest sheet is still thinner than the lightest blanket. Blankets are generally used...

, the blankets are used as cape

Cape

Cape can be used to describe any sleeveless outer garment, such as a poncho, but usually it is a long garment that covers only the back half of the wearer, fastening around the neck. They were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon, and have had periodic...

s and gifts at ceremonial dances and potlatch

Potlatch

A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures...

es.

The blankets were originally acquired from the Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

 traders during the mid-19th century. The trade blankets were typically dark blue duffle and decorated with buttons made from abalone

Abalone

Abalone , from aulón, are small to very large-sized edible sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae and the genus Haliotis...

 or dentalium shells. The central crest typically portrayed a symbol of the wearer's family heritage.

The blankets usually have a red border on the upper and lateral edges. A central crest figure is created from the buttons and red flannel appliqué

Applique

In its broadest sense, an appliqué is a smaller ornament or device applied to another surface. In the context of ceramics, for example, an appliqué is a separate piece of clay added to the primary work, generally for the purpose of decoration...

. Button blankets are worn over the shoulders and the crest design hangs on the back of the wearer.

Among the tribes who make button blankets, they are not hung from walls, except at funerals or near the graves of chiefs.

Haida artist Florence Davidson

Florence Davidson

Florence Edenshaw Davidson was a Canadian First Nations artist from the Haida nation who created traditional basketry and button-blankets and was also a respected elder in her First Nations community, the Haida village of Masset, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia.She was born in Masset on...

 (1896–1993) was known for her button blankets.

See also

• Alaska Native art
  Alaska Native Art
  Alaska Native cultures are rich and diverse, and their art forms are magnificent representations of their history, skills, tradition, adaptation, and nearly twenty thousand years of continuous life in some of the most remote places on earth. Yet these art forms are largely unseen and unknown...
  
  
• Chilkat weaving
  Chilkat weaving
  Chilkat weaving is a traditional form of weaving practiced by Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Northwest coastal tribes of Alaska and British Columbia. Chilkat blankets are worn by high-ranking tribal members on civic or ceremonial occasions, including dances.-Background:The name derives from...
  
  
• Native American art
  Native American art
  Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present...
  
  
• Northwest Coast art
  Northwest Coast art
  Northwest Coast art is the term commonly applied to a style of art created primarily by artists from Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth and other First Nations and Native American tribes of the Northwest Coast of North America, from pre-European-contact times up to the...