Headdress

This headdress arrived at the museum in 1940 together with other objects from Guyana. It was made in the lowland Amazon style with feathers in a cane framework and is the kind that would have been worn during festivals.

In earlier times, shamans wore them to attract the powers of the sun in sun worshiping rituals. Because birds belonged to the universe of men in Amazonian myth, only men wore feather headdresses. They were a key part of men’s clothing and were usually made out of parrots, macaws and harpy eagles’ feathers.

Women decorated necklaces and aprons with feathers, but it was the men who wore the more elaborate feathers.