"Powhatan's Mantle" is a cloak of deerskin, which originally belonged to a Native American of high social status. Its decoration consists of shell beadwork, depicting a central standing human figure flanked by two upright, opposed quadrupeds and surrounded by 34 discs. The two animals resemble one another in terms of their overall outline, but their tails and paws differ. The left-hand animal has a long tail and round paws with five articulated digits. The right-hand animal has a shorter tail, and its legs end in cloven hoofs. Historically, this artwork was believed to have belonged to Powhatan, who was the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time English settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607. "Powhatan's Mantle" is one of the earliest North American artifacts to be collected by Europeans that still survives today.