What Is It: A Matchcoat

Many portraits and sketches of woodlands people will show warriors and sometimes women with a blanket or large piece of cloth wrapped toga-style around the body.  While today this is almost universally referred to as a blanket, it was known at the time as a matchcoat, after an English corruption of an Algonquian word for the garment.

In addition to breechcloths, leggings, tunics and other common pieces of Woodlands attire, Natives often used animal skins, sometimes with the fur side turned in during winter, as a combination blanket or cloak, particularly during winter months.  Beginning in the 17th century, as trade between Natives and Europeans became common, woolen and other warm cloth became a trading staple, used for the same purpose.  Wool is warm, even when it's soaking wet, and durable, standing up to repeated years of wash and wear, unlike animal skins.  In addition to trade shirts or hunting shirts, Natives would wrap these large pieces of cloth around the body, sometimes securing them with a built or a sash, but never with pins or pieces of jewelry.  In time, the simple lengths of cloth became more elaborate, with bands of colors died or woven into the fabric and arranged as part of the overall look.  The matchcoat later became the blanket coat, a blanket folded or even sewn into a coat-like garment, called in French a capote, or the more well-known Trade or Point Blanket as sold by the Hudson's Bay Company, what many people commonly call an Indian Blanket.