Penn Museum's Related Amazonian Collection
The Gift of Birds

In 1991, Penn Museum exhibited its collection of Amazonian featherwork in an exhibition called Gift of Birds. The exhibition displayed featherwork made by 37 different groups from the Amazon using feathers from 48 species of birds. The objects were collected as early as 1896 by Max Uhle at the excavation site of Pachacamac in coastal Peru. The majority of the objects were collected by William Farabee in 1913-1914 and again throughout the 1920s. In the 1960s, Ken Kensinger, who co-curated the exhibit with Ruben Reina, led excavations throughout South America and continued to add to Penn Museum's collection.

Central to the exhibit were three ethnographic scenes depicting different rituals: the coming of age initiation ritual of the Cashinahua villagers of eastern Peru, an inter-village visiting ritual of the Waiwai people of British Guiana, and a funerary ceremony of the Bororo people of Brazil. Feather ornaments play a prominent role in these ceremonies as they transfer the stories, ideas, and symbolism that comprise the basic concepts of culture from one generation to the next.

The different groups in the Amazon use feather ornamentation as more than just an enhancement of the inner radiance of the wearer. By tranforming this natural resource, these objects become an expression of a people's world-view and how they relate to the universe. After studying the use of featherwork that varied from group to group, curator, Ruben Reina noted that, "these man-made objects are the books of non-literate people."