Becoming Avian: Amazonian featherworks from the John P. O'Neill collection

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1998, ornithologist John P. O'Neill donated a vast ethnographic collection of objects he was gifted from fellow researcher Charles Fugler or purchased from local persons in Pucallpa, Peru, during his time studying birds in the Peruvian Amazon. According to O'Neill, the cultures responsible for these items' creations are the Cashinahua, Aguaruna, Achual, and Arawak. Eighteen of these items are beautifully crafted arrangements of feathered clothing and objects. These items include five headdresses (Items #22059, #22060, #22071, #22072, and #22074), five bouquets (Items #22189, #22190, #22191, and #22193), a hat (Item #22180), a necklace (Item #22179), three tassels (Items #22142, #22143, and #22164), a backrack (Item #22147), a scarf (Item #22148, and a hair tie (Item #22274). In order to properly study these items within their original context from the perspective of Amerindian cosmology, a materialist perspective is necessary. By using this perspective, one observes the items' ability to act and transform. This transformation, which I refer to as "becoming bird" or "becoming animal," entails reciprocal vibrancies resulting from those interactions among the items, their materials, and humans.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39821.0