Dogsey

A new study has been published, confirming that blankets woven by the ancestors of the Coast Salish Native Americans more than a century ago were made partly of yarn spun from the hair of woolly dogs. The study has provided verification for oral accounts – tribal lore - which have been handed down over generations.

Salish tribal lore says that their Pacific Northwest ancestors bred a 'Salish woolly dog' for its coat. With a fleecy undercoat and long, fine outer hairs, it could be spun into yarn to make blankets. George Vancouver, an 18th century explorer, wrote of Salish dogs with coats that were “a mixture of a coarse kind of wool, with very fine, long hair, capable of being spun into yarn.” The dogs have been likened to a 'Finnish Spitz'.

However, claims that these Salish blankets contained dog hair have previously been dismissed. No dog hair was found in a survey of over 100 items woven by the Salish and in a 2006 DNA analysis of a small sample, the result was inconclusive.

There is only one pelt of a Salish woolly dog around today and it is at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The woolly dog, named Mutton, was owned by a 19th century ethnographer who studied tribes such as the Salish.

The new research used mass spectrometry, which can measure molecular mass, to analyse nine blankets woven by the Coast Salish in the 19th or early 20th centuries. As expected, peptides were discovered that matched peptides from the hair of sheep and mountain goats. However, in five of the nine blankets, there were peptides matching those from the pelt of Mutton, suggesting to the scientists that they came from dog hair. Analysis showed that it was only in the older blankets that dog yarn was used and in combination with fibre from highly prized mountain goats to make a mixed yarn. The earlier DNA analysis had only looked at more recent blankets and analysis by mass spectrometry agreed that none of those contained dog hair.

It is thought that dog hair was easy to come by and therefore used for low value blankets and common usage, rather than ceremonial.

The researcher, Klaus Hollemeyer from Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, who developed the mass spectrometry technique believes the new work is “well done and documented”. It should corroborate the tribal lore of the Coast Salish.

The work is published in the December edition of Antiquity journal.