A Kwagiulth blanket, worn as a robe by the Potlatch dancer with the Thunderbird mask, adorned with a Thunderbird pattern of Abalone shells.

Kwagliuth ceremonial "button blankets" - with crests of pearl and shell buttons - are derived from what was a new variation of weaving by Kwakiutl women in the early 19th century: the Chilkat blanket. Rectangular textile woven of mountain goats' wool woven on a loom and composed of highly abstracted crest designs in blue, yellow, white, and black, with a long heavy white fringe around the hem; this new tradition supplanted the earlier Sea Otter robes and fine furs. Only those blankets of Tlingit (Alaska) ancestry could claim to be Chilkat. Such blankets were highly valued up and down the coast where they were traded in a lively cross-cultural economy revolving around regular potlatch.