CULTURAL EXCHANGE- King Kamehameha's Rain Suit Click here to close window.

How did the rain suit of a Hawaiian King find a permanent home in the collections of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, thousands of miles away? The Peabody Essex Museum was founded more than 200 years ago, during Salem's golden age of international trade, by a group of sea captains and supercargoes (business managers on ships), who called themselves the East India Marine Society. Marine societies abounded in Salem and surrounding towns at that time, but the East India Marine Society was a little different than these other groups. To belong, you had to be a captain or a supercargo on a ship that sailed beyond one of the world's two major capes, the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. The members shared information about their voyages, and they started a museum to display the souvenirs they were collecting from around the world. A sampling of the early accessions brought back to Salem from all over the world is still on view in East India Marine Hall, the society's first permanent home, completed in 1825. It includes a penguin from the Falkland Islands, collected in 1820 by Captain George Hodges; an 1802 canoe model from Hawai'i, a gift of Captains Benjamin Crowninshield and Matthew Folger; an alabaster figure of the "Chinese deity Jos or Foe" donated in 1800 by William Ward; an 1800 carved pipe from the Haida people of Alaska, donated in 1849 by Captain J. N. Chapman; an 1820 Ostrich egg from the Cape of Good Hope, donated by Captain Benjamin Carpenter; and a calendar stick, created in 1804 by James Drown of Providence, Rhode Island to mark the days and weeks of his stay on the island of Trinstan d'Cunha, where he was shipwrecked while hunting for seals. As evidenced by the items described above, donations included both "natural and artificial curiosities, adhering to the collecting mission of the founding members. Although the present collection includes many rare items of art and culture from all over the world, perhaps one of the most unusual is the rain suit owned by King Kamehameha of Hawai'i. The rain suit brings with it many questions: what was it made of; who was the artist or craftsman who created it; how was it made; and how did it happen to find its way to Salem, Massachusetts? It is too bad that the rain suit cannot speak to us today. It would probably have many stories to tell. We do know that it most likely followed a path remarkably similar to one of the trade routes of a New England sailor. It was made in the Aleutian islands from the intestines of sea lions. A trader probably traded for it when he was on the Northwest Coast trading for sea otter and other furs to bring to China. It was probably exchanged for sandalwood in Hawai'i on the way to China, and then became part of the collection of one of the Hawaiian kings. King Kamehameha of Hawai'i gave it to Marblehead captain and trader Thomas Meek when Meek was in Hawai'i and finally Meek donated it to the East India Marine Society after returning to Salem in 1820. The East India Marine Society has undergone many changes through its 200- plus years in existence, and now bears the name of the Peabody Essex Museum. The rain suit was one of many artistic and cultural objects in the early collection of the museum, objects that captured the imagination of visitors and introduced them to the diversity and complexity of the world in which they lived.

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