A six-foot long cape covered with gray turkey feathers sits triumphantly inside a glass box at the Aquinnah Cultural Center. It may be the first of its kind to be created in over 400 years.

Wampanoag artist, Julia Marden, sorted through each turkey feather and intricately wove them together with commercial cotton cord she dyed with tea. In the light, the feathers shine an iridescent blue and green.

Ms. Marden calls the cape her “coup de grâce”, and feels it may be the most important piece she will ever create.

“A turkey feather mantle is a grand piece,” Ms. Marden said. “It’s something that someone of high-status would wear . . . The twining itself is extremely time consuming.”

The mantle is currently on display at the Aquinnah Cultural Center through July 27, along with four belts that Ms. Marden made out of glass wampum beans and deerskin lace. The belts are five-feet in length and illustrate Wampanoag history. 

Ms. Marden said weaving has always been a rich part of Wampanoag culture. While most Wampanoag people didn’t have turkey feather mantles, other woven items such as baskets were so common that she described them as 17th-century tupperware.

But when the colonialists came and violently oppressed the Wampanoag people, weaving arts were almost entirely lost.

“There was no time to be creating turkey feather mantles,” Ms. Marden said. “We went from a thriving people who could create works of art like this to surviving.”

When Ms. Marden started working on the cape a year ago, there was only history to guide her. When asked if it directly resembles the ancient Wampanoag mantles, Ms. Marden said she wasn’t sure.

“I had to do it from instinct . . . . I taught myself how to do it by how I think it would have been done.”

Ms. Marden learned how to weave 35 years ago, when she was working at Plimoth Patuxet Museums. At the time, there were many Wampanoag employees who wanted to restore their culture.

When she’s not weaving, Ms. Marden is teaching. She said she looks for every opportunity to educate Wampanoag youth about their history and how to weave with traditional Wampanoag methods.

“The youth are coming in with force,” she said. “They want to learn, they want to know. I’m very hopeful for the future.”

NaDaizja Bolling, the director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center and a Wampanoag tribal member, said she learned how to weave from Ms. Marden.

“She’s always accessible to people who want to learn,” Ms. Bolling said. “It’s said that the best weavers could weave so tightly that their baskets could carry water. I feel like her weaving could carry water.”

Ms. Bolling said she was thrilled to house the mantle at the Aquinnah Cultural Center, seeing it as an opportunity to display how the Wampanoag culture has persevered and that Wampanoag people are engaged with their traditional art forms.

“Wampanoag art and indigenous art are fine arts,” Ms. Bolling said. “[Indigenous artists] often get relegated to the arts and crafts sector, but so many people have really fine-tuned their work and put in decades and decades of practice.”

Before the cape was displayed, Ms. Marden debuted her piece at the Aquinnah pow wow last September, where she invited Wampanoag tribal members to drape it over their shoulders.

“It’s extremely hard to put into words how emotional that day was,” Ms. Marden said.

Ms. Bolling took a turn wearing the cape at the pow wow. She said everyone was beaming with pride.

“You didn’t have to have a single thing to do with it being created, but just to put it on and feel like you were a part of the process . . . it was a powerful experience,” Ms. Bolling said.

Photos of the Wampanoag people wearing the cape are on display at the cultural center. Ms. Bolling said she’s trying to find a time for more Wampanoag people to gather and wear the cape before it leaves Aquinnah.

Ms. Marden will give an artist talk on July 26 at the Vanderhoop Homestead.