A kamleika is an

Aleut Aleuts ( ; (west) or (east) ) are the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleuts and the islands are politically divided between the US state of Alaska ...

robe made from

sea mammal Marine mammals are mammals that rely on marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reliance on marine enviro ...

(mostly sea otter) intestine, which was light and

waterproof Waterproofing is the process of making an object, person or structure waterproof or water-resistant so that it remains relatively unaffected by water or resists the ingress of water under specified conditions. Such items may be used in wet env ...

. They also sometimes had robes to protect against threats such as heavy

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

and

rain Rain is a form of precipitation where water drop (liquid), droplets that have condensation, condensed from Water vapor#In Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is res ...

. They were sewn with grass, and each took around a month to make. Another type of kamleikas were made as ceremonial robes, and were much more decorative than the hunting kind. These did not have hoods, and had beads all over the robe. After contact with

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

ns and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

ans, they were given as gifts. The Russians called traditional

gut garments kamleikas; this word has been borrowed into Yup'ik from the Russian as ''kamliikaq'',Jacobson, Steven A. (2012)
Yup'ik Eskimo Dictionary, 2nd edition
Alaska Native Language Center. and that word has been used generally for any gut garment. Reed, Fran (2008).
Embellishments of the Alaska Native gut parka
. ''Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings'', Paper 127.

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* {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2020 Robes and cloaks Aleut culture Inuit clothing

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