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Becoming Avian: Amazonian Featherworks From The John P. O’Neill Collection, Madeline R. Blanchard
Becoming Avian: Amazonian Featherworks From The John P. O’Neill Collection, Madeline R. Blanchard
LSU Master's Theses
In 1998 ornithologist John P. O’Neill donated an ethnographic collection of 434 objects he was gifted from researcher Charles Fugler or purchased from persons in Pucallpa, Peru, during his time there studying Amazonian birds. I evaluate 18 feathered objects. According to O’Neill, the cultures responsible for the items are the Cashinahua, Aguaruna, Achual, and Arawak. Eighteen of these items are beautifully crafted arrangements of feathered clothing and objects. The collection includes five headdresses, five bouquets, a hat, a necklace, three tassels, a backrack, a scarf, and a hair tie.
The objects and the seventeen species of bird used are active …