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"Featherwork."
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Exhibitions
Reviews the exhibition, 'Royal Hawaiian featherwork : nā hulu aliʻi, De Young Museum, San Francisco, USA. 29 Aug 2015–11 Apr 2016, produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, curated by Christina Hellmich. Notes its accompanying book. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Journal Article
Putting on the dog : the animal origins of what we wear
\"Kwasny investigates the cultural history of fashion, traveling the globe to gather firsthand accounts of traditions and manufacturing methods, from aboriginal to modern, as she investigates the phenomenology of silk, skin, wool, feathers, and pearls, long coveted materials that even today are regarded as precious and luxurious\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The influence of Amazonia on state formation in the ancient Andes
The impact of Amazonia on the history and development of late prehistoric (c. AD 500–1500) Andean highland polities has been largely ignored. This article considers how shifting exchange relations between Amazonia and the Andes may have greatly influenced state-formation processes. It is argued that Arawak expansion in the Amazonian lowlands, completed by c. AD 500, was a prerequisite development for stimulating the rise of Andean highland empires, which were heavily dependent upon imported prestige Amazonian feathers. Future research directions are suggested in order to enhance our understanding of late prehistoric state formation in the Americas.
Journal Article
“If He Is Converted”: A New Spanish Featherwork Ecce Homo in Southeastern Africa
In recent years, scholars have paid increasing attention to the material, spiritual, and collecting histories of both pre-invasion and colonial New Spanish (Mexican) featherworks. Rapidly and globally disseminated through religious and family networks, these objects traveled from Mexico to Spain, and other locations, before the end of the sixteenth century. This article explores the little-known history of a devotional featherwork Ecce Homo sent from Portugal to southeastern Africa in 1569. Originally a gift to Sebastian I of Portugal sent from the Spanish-colonized Americas, the Ecce Homo later entered the collection of Catherine of Austria, Sebastian’s grandmother. Catherine presented it to the Jesuits accompanying the Portuguese evangelizing and gold-seeking mission to Mutapa, a vast kingdom that encompassed parts of present-day Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Its intended recipient was the Mutapa emperor. However, this was not a gift meant to grease the wheels of diplomacy, nor was it designated as a tool for conversion: it was, instead, meant for the Mutapa emperor “se se convertese”—if he is converted. That is, it was conceived as a gift from one Catholic monarch to another, for use in personal devotion. The perceived spiritual efficacy of these feather images —themselves recently assimilated to Catholic Iberia from polytheistic Mesomerica—thus extended well beyond the transatlantic Iberian realms.
Journal Article
Practical Dyeing and Technical Imaging: Replicating a Colonial Feather Insignia from Mexico
A colonial feather insignia from New Spain dating to the late 16th century is one of a group of seven unique feather objects kept in museums in Austria, Germany, and Mexico. The insignia represents a highly skilled example of a featherworking tradition documented in historical sources such as the Florentine Codex. In order to make a replica for the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City (MNA), an interdisciplinary team carried out technical and material studies before preparing the necessary raw material. At the centre of this work are bird feathers dyed with organic dye and naturally coloured feathers that cover most of the insignia’s surface. By working with historical documents, artisans, reference collections of bird skin, and the application of multiband imaging (MBI) and fibre optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), it was possible to identify both the bird species and the organic dye used or naturally presented in the feathers. Dyeing experiments to colour-match the different shades of red were conducted by applying traditional recipes and materials. The true value of this research is not necessarily in the finished product or outcome but in the journey itself—specifically in the methods developed and the practical experience gained along the way.
Journal Article
Featherwork in Early and Medieval China
This paper is concerned with the early documented history of featherwork in China, as described in historical texts and literature up until the end of the Tang dynasty in 907 CE. Although featherwork from several Pacific islands and Latin America has recently been the subject of academic attention, the important Chinese tradition has been neglected. Drawing on studies of featherwork from other cultures, this paper divides these accounts by technical criterion into flexible base featherwork (clothing, curtains, hangings, and coverlets); rigid base featherwork (boxes, architectural detailing, jewelry, and screens); and most remarkably of all, deconstructionist featherwork, whereby the barbs of individual feathers were peeled apart and then spun with a silk core to create a feather thread, which was then woven into cloth. Featherwork was produced in vast quantities in early and medieval China to satisfy demand for these luxurious and brightly colored items, and exotic birds—kingfishers, parrots, pheasants, and so on—were traded across the empire to create these wonderful works of art.
Journal Article
Analytical investigation of the feather decoration technique of a seventeenth to eighteenth century Chinese imperial hanging screen
Decoration with feathers is a universal phenomenon in human history. Objects decorated with feathers were regarded as fine artworks and hence were enormously prized. In ancient China, dotting a surface with blue kingfisher feathers was a famous, complex and delicate decoration technique called diancui. Although various ancient diancui artworks appear in many museums around the world and researchers have realized significant results in studies of the history, technique and conservation of diancui, some key historical details are still not clear. In this research performed during restoration, an important object from the Palace Museum, the “Feather Decoration Hanging Screen with Birds and Flowers Pattern”, was analyzed by various scientific technologies. This object is a Chinese imperial artwork of the Qing dynasty (seventeenth to eighteenth century) decorated with kingfisher feathers and the feathers of several other birds, and it represents the highest level of this period. As a typical and valuable case, the results provide important clues for solving questions arising from related academic fields.
Journal Article
Hybrid Bodyscapes
This paper examines cultural change and hybridity through a visual history of the alterations in dress, ornamentation, and body treatment experienced by the Yanesha of Peruvian Amazonia in postcolonial times. Such transformations often appear to be fluctuations between tradition and modernity explained alternatively as instances of “acculturation” or as expressions of “invented traditions” and “postmodern identity politics.” By focusing mainly on external factors, these theoretical approaches pay insufficient attention to the role of native perceptions and practices in promoting cultural change. Approaches that do take into consideration these perceptions, such as those centered on the notions of “passing” and “mimesis,” do not apply to this particular case. Adopting a Yanesha perspective as a departure point, I argue that what appear to be expressions of acculturative processes are the result of a long‐standing indigenous openness to the Other—particularly the white and mestizo Others—and the native conviction that the Self is possible only through the incorporation of the Other. Such incorporation always finds expression in bodily transformations, hybrid bodyscapes that change throughout time according to the shifting relationships between Self and Other.
Journal Article
Could the Mexica toztli have been a sun parakeet? Connecting Mexica featherwork to South America
Colorful feathers were an important part of the regalia and martial attributes of the Mexicas, who used them on headdresses, shields, capes, but also on the images of their gods. Despite the early interest of Europeans in the American featherwork, some bird species used by the amanteca remain undetermined to this day. The thorough study of two manuscripts written under the direction of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, the Primeros Memoriales and the Florentine Codex, has revealed an inconsistency between the way the toztli, or “yellow parrot,” has been described and depicted in the colonial sources, and its current identification as the Amazona oratrix. This bird is more likely to have been a rarer specimen, native to lands located far from the Mexica heartland.
Journal Article