A dress made of the bladder of the whale, which will turn off rain; used by the Siberians and Russians

Object Status:

Unlocated

Primary Source Reference:

Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 30 May 1794

Notes:

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, Harvard University, acquired many cultural items in 1899 from Moses Kimball's Boston Museum. Kimball and P. T. Barnum jointly purchased many of the Peale collections when they were sold about 1849. The Peale Museum had many such items; the 1848 sheriff's sale included an entire case of "Dresses Made from the Intestines of a Whale, &c." This donation cannot be positively identified with a particular extant artifact, but it may have been the kamleika pictured here.