Feathers: Visions of Pre-Columbian America
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We would like express our thanks to all the writers who have participated in this book, Anne-Marie Wohrer, Carole Fraresso, Emilie Enard, Fabien Ferrer-Joly, Pascal Mongne and Gérard Priet, as well as all the collaborators at the Musée des Jacobins for their assistance and dedication. We would also like to thank the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, its president Stéphane Martin and his team for their invaluable collaboration, and the various museums and libraries whose works are featured in this book. Special thanks are also due to Gérard Priet and his wife Catherine for their selfless participation and their generosity with regard to the Musée des Jacobins.
© Somogy éditions d’art, Paris, 2016 © Musée des Jacobins, Auch, 2016 Book published under the direction of Somogy éditions d’art Publishing director: Nicolas Neumann Managing editor: Stéphanie Méséguer Editorial coordination and follow-up: Emmanuelle Levesque Graphic design: François Dinguirard Translation from French into English: Sandra Reid Editorial contribution: Katharine Turvey Production: Béatrice Bourgerie and Mélanie Le Gros ISBN Somogy : 978-2-7572-1164-9 Legal deposit: October 2016 Printed in Czech republic (European Union)
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Feathers Visions of Pre-Columbian America
Under the direction of FABIEN FERRER-JOLY
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION FRANCK MONTAUGÉ Senator, Mayor of Auch
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THE PRE-COLUMBIAN COLLECTIONS OF THE MUSÉE DES JACOBINS: A HUNDRED YEAR-OLD HISTORY FABIEN FERRER-JOLY Curator, Musée des Jacobins
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TEXTILES AND DIVINE FEATHERS OF ANCIENT PERU CAROLE FRARESSO PhD in Archaeological Materials, consultant expert in jewellery and pre-Columbian art
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BIRDS, FEATHERS AND DOWN IN PICTOGRAPHIC MANUSCRIPTS ANNE-MARIE WOHRER Assistant lecturer, École du Louvre and École pratique des hautes études
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FEATHERS: THE IDENTITY OF PRE-COLUMBIAN AMERICA
FABIEN FERRER-JOLY
THE MASS OF SAINT GREGORY: A MIXED MESSAGE PASCAL MONGNE Archaeologist and art historian, specialist in the Americas
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THE TECHNIQUES OF AZTEC FEATHERWORKING PASCAL MONGNE
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THE FEATHERS OF RESISTANCE FABIEN FERRER-JOLY GÉRARD PRIET
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THE ‘FEATHERED’ INDIAN, OR THE CARICATURE OF THE AMERICAS PASCAL MONGNE
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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INTRODUCTION
FRANCK MONTAUGÉ Senator, Mayor of Auch
A liking for others, the call of the sea, the desire for the unknown, the thirst for discovery, here are so many human passions that, since man stood erect and was able to cast his gaze towards the horizon, have contributed to building bridges – sometimes improbable, often one-way – between peoples who may have never otherwise met. Down through millennia and centuries, humanity has thus constructed and continues to construct itself, not upon the ruins of lost civilisations, but by following this slow and fascinating process of connections, assimilations, incorporations, restitutions, re-creations. To those who would be amazed to find in Auch, in the heart of Gascony, the fiefdom of the musketeers, the land of Armagnac and of foie gras, one of France’s finest collections of pre-Columbian art, we will respond that there are few things less shrouded in mystery. The desire for adventure of one of our city’s inhabitants was indeed the impetus behind the first collection brought back to Auch at the end of the nineteenth century. We know nothing about Guillaume Pujos’ real motives when he acquired, in Chile and elsewhere, these magnificent pieces. Nor do we know anything about the conditions in which they were acquired. However, what we do know, which in some ways tells us plenty about Pujos’ character, is that barely back in Gascony, he desired to make the pieces known and to share what we imagine was his own wonderment. Wonderment about what, you may ask. What is wonderful about these objects is the way they are extremely distant and yet extraordinarily close. Distant in space but also in time, they first appear as relics full of mystery, and then suddenly we hear them speaking to us. Even though we sometimes still do not know what they were used for or the powers attributed to them by the men and women who created them, these objects speak to us in a way that family treasures would. This is the great discovery that all long-distance travellers have made: as strange as the stranger may be, no matter how faraway we met him, he is our human brother, one of us, filled with the same fears, overcome by the same fevers, nourished by the same hopes, and who dreams, laughs and cries, who searches, invents and creates, and who thereby gives himself good reasons to live. It is this particular experience, that of the long-distance traveller discovering in the other what he thought to be different, which the museum allows us to experience. Rich with more than ten thousand objects, the Musée des Jacobins’ collections also show us what the clash of two civilisations produced when they encountered each other, in terms of domination of one over the other and of assimilation of one in the other. The works from the pre-Columbian period speak to us of this era before travel. The FEATHERS
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works of the so-called Hispano-American period show us the effects of colonisation. And we witness the mixing taking place between the Christian imagery of the colonisers and that of the thousand-year old religions of the Andean and Mexican peoples. We see how religion was made an instrument of domination and integration, and how the local culture also managed to imprint its mark and to conserve a part of itself within the new order. The feather is the through line of the book that you hold in your hands. This symbol is universal because there is no person on Earth who has not seen a bird fly without dreaming of being able to rise with it. The feather held a privileged place in Mesoamerican and Andean cultures, but it also speaks to the people of Gascony as it does to all the other peoples on earth. It is the indispensible ally of whoever wishes to travel on the wings of time. Today our responsibility with regard to the objects Guillaume Pujos brought back to us, and to the many other objects that generous donors have offered down through the years, is not merely to conserve them from the ravages of time. Above all we must make them visible and intelligible to visitors of today and tomorrow. Our responsibility as the guardians of one of the greatest collections in France is also to be a reference and a mainspring for the 170 French museums in which the 22,000 objects of the Americas, indexed by Pascal Mongne, are dispersed. Sharing is the vocation of any collection. Hence, thanks to the dissemination of knowledge and to the multiplication of exchanges, humanity learns by itself and continues to progress. May all the feathers contained in this book lift you up and make life lighter.
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INTRODUCTION
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THE PRE-COLUMBIAN COLLECTIONS OF THE MUSÉE DES JACOBINS a century of history FABIEN FERRER-JOLY
The history of museums is special in that it evolves along with museums’ collections, even if this sometimes means it takes unexpected directions. On 16 December 1793, when a decree from the Directoire de Gers promulgated the creation of a museum in Auch, no one could have imagined that, more than 220 years later, it would be primarily renowned for the riches of its pre-Columbian collections! Auch, which has no coastal tradition or great explorers, and where the only peaks on the horizon are not those of the Andes but of the Pyrénées! Nevertheless, a few audacious travellers threw themselves into the American adventure, among them Guillaume Pujos [2], born in 1852 in Auch, whose name is for evermore associated with that of the museum, as he was the instigator of its collection of works from the Americas. Unfortunately we know little about Pujos and the motives that prompted him, along with his sister, to leave Gers for Chile. Only one clue remains: an inscription on one of the ceramics that he brought back from his journeys mentions the year 1879. It seems that he arrived in Santiago de Chile [1] prior to this date to probably remain there until the terrible earthquake of 1906. While there, Pujos showed a great interest in local history. He was interested in ancient civilisations and during his many journeys through South America he gathered together a homogenous collection composed of a hundred pieces. In it we find, for the most part, terracotta objects from the greatest Andean cultures (Moche, Nazca, Chimú, Chancay, Inca) and also ethnographic objects (notably from the Araucanian and Yaghan cultures), as well as a rare collection of sacred Latin American art from the southern Cordillera countries (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina). An informed art connoisseur, Guillaume Pujos was not mistaken about the quality and value of the pieces that he gathered upon his arrival in Chile. We note, for example, a very fine group of Moche stirrup-handle ceramics, including a very beautiful and characteristic portrait vase and a magnificent representation of a mythical animal in ochre on a white background [3-5]. His choices all indicate sound taste and a very good knowledge of these ancient civilisations. Some pieces came from major ceremonial sites of Andean archaeology, such as Huaca de la Luna near Trujillo, the excavations of which would reveal their importance far later on.
Above [1] Portrait of Guillaume Pujos Chile, Santiago Photograph Between 1879 and 1906 Archives – Musée des Jacobins – Auch Next page
One of the originalities of this collection is the presence of a very fine group of Latin American sacred art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries [7-8]. It comprises sixty-five polychrome sculptures and a few paintings portraying individuals from Catholic hagiography. These pieces, relatively rare in France, can be compared to the Quito and FEATHERS
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[2] Portrait of Guillaume Pujos Painted by Maxime Dastugue, ca. 1875 Oil on canvas, 92 × 72.5 cm Musée des Jacobins – Auch – Inv. no. 975.1601
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TEXTILES AND DIVINE FEATHERS OF ANCIENT PERU
CAROLE FRARESSO
INTRODUCTION In ancient Peru, textiles were – in the same way as gold and silver – choice materials used to express a vision of the mind and to display the beliefs and codes of peoples. Omnipresent in Peruvian art, the use of the feathers and the representations of birds was part of the complex system of the Andean cosmology. Thus their meanings cannot be understood without evoking the other animals that symbolised the tripartite world of pre-Columbian societies. Presented in myths as a gift from deified ancestors, weaving has been, since 3000 BC to the present day, one of the principal means of artistic expression for the traditional societies of Peru. Marks of social rank, proof of belonging, unique objects of exchange
FEATHERS
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BIRDS, FEATHERS AND DOWN
in pictographic manuscripts
ANNE-MARIE WOHRER
Closely linked to the life of Mesoamerican and, in particular, Mexica society, birds, feathers and down were present everywhere in pre-Columbian pictographic and colonial manuscripts in a generally realist, sometimes imaginary, form. Birds, feathers and down appeared in economic (in the form of merchandise-tributes), geographic (in toponymy), or historical (in anthroponymy) contexts. They were abundant in the sacred domain, such as it was expressed in divinatory manuscripts. In sixteenth-century Nahuatl-language texts, in Latin characters, birds, feathers and down were also highly present, especially in the affective domain, because the feather and the bird, in particular the quetzal, were metaphors for the beloved child. THE ECONOMY The Aztec Empire received, on regular dates, many tributes of feathers and precious birds sent to them by conquered kingdoms. These tributes were noted in account registers, in particular two colonial manuscripts, the Codex Mendoza and the Matrícula de Tributos, which are partial copies of pre-Columbian manuscripts1. Precise quantities of feathers, down, dead or living birds, and feathered objects were paid to the Empire’s capital.2 The birds most represented in these tributes came from warm regions, and these included the quetzal (Pharomachrus neoxenus), macaw (Ara macao and Ara militaris) and cotinga (Cotinga amabilis), and various parrots. The contents of Folio 47r of the Codex Mendoza [1], dedicated to the tributes paid by the rich southern province of Xoconochco, located on the coast facing the Pacific Ocean, clearly illustrate the importance of these tributes in feathers and birds.Twice a year the province paid, as it appears on the third and fourth rows from the top of Folio 47, ten ‘bunches’ of feathers with 400 items in each bunch (the schematic feather displayed in the middle of the bunch represents the number 400), in turquoise, red, green and yellow.3 The largest feathers came from the quetzal. Cotinga skins, in two groups of eighty items (the glyph of the white flag represents the number twenty), completed this tribute, in which other local products also featured, such as jaguar hides, bundles of beans and earthenware jars of cacao, amber, and golden objects. TOPONYMY Representations of birds and feathers were combined with other elements for transcribing the names of localities. There were many names: twenty-six in the Codex Mendoza alone, and as many in pre-Columbian manuscripts like the Codex Zouche-Nuttall. Most of these names have remained in contemporary toponymy. FEATHERS
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1. The Codex Mendoza was created around 1541 (Nicholson, 1992, I, 10). On indigenous paper, it is composed of three parts, the first historical (the history of the Aztecs), the second economic (a list of the tributes paid to the Aztec Empire), and the last devoted to social realities. La Matricula, incomplete, was probably contemporaneous with the Codex Mendoza. 2. According to L. M. Mohar Betancourt (1990, II, 124-125), there were three different tribute measurements: the quetzalmaitl (‘hand’ – fistful – of quetzal feathers), the quetzalilipilli (‘bouquet’ of quetzal feathers) and the quetzaltanahtli (‘basket’ of quetzal feathers). 3. The dates indicated on the right and the left of the folio, glyphs of the months of Ochpaniztli and Tlacaxipehualiztli.
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[1] Codex Mendoza, folio 47r1: Tributes Facsimile Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac – Paris
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FEATHERS: THE IDENTITY OF PRE-COLUMBIAN AMERICA
FABIEN FERRER-JOLY
What a curious fate the feather has had. Fragile and of little interest to the covetous conquistadors, it ended up, contrary to all expectations, conquering the West and imposing itself as the symbol of the New World in the minds of everyone. What a curious fate indeed, that a small feather, falling from the sky, would have impregnated the goddess Caotlicue, who then give birth to Huitzilopochtli, the tutelary god of the Aztecs, literally ‘the Bird Fly of the Left’.[1] He would, in the form of an eagle or of a hummingbird, indicate to the Mexica people the site of their future capital, the great Tenochtitlan. What curious fate, finally, determined that Quetzalcoatl,[2] the famous feathered snake or ‘Snake–Precious Feather’ to use his real name, should be born with an ugly physique and that Coyotlinahual, the god and patron of the Amantecas (featherworkers), should make him a mask and beard adorned with feathers? In fact, Mesoamerican cosmology overflows with allusions to this material whose symbolism is particularly forceful and ancient. It is even an abiding feature. Birds are the masters of the skies. They represent the world of the beyond in many civilisations and feathers were present in all the events that gave rhythm to the life of the city. Sculptures of gods, just like the victims of sacrifices, were adorned with them. They embellished diplomatic gifts, were used for making clothes for the Tlatoani ceremony 1, accompanied warriors into battle and constituted an essential part of the tributes paid by the towns subjugated by the Aztecs. The use of feathers in clothing and headdresses remained a strong component of Mesoamerican symbolic rhetoric and referred to mythological tales and to the attributes of various deities. [3-6] This is why the art of featherwork (amantecayotl) played a major role in pre-Columbian societies. More precious than gold and loaded with a powerful symbolic charge, the feather assumed a sacred dimension in pre-Columbian America. This is why the trade, work and use of feathers were specially regulated. For example, any person who killed a quetzal would be subject to harsh punishment. Feathers were the privilege of the highest ranks of society, to such a degree that featherwork techniques were taught to children of the aristocracy. Diego Durán, in his The History of the Indies of New Spain, even said that ‘the feather is the shadow of lords and kings’.2 Unfortunately, because of their great fragility, very few have managed to reach us, and examples dating from before the Spanish conquest are rare. In fact many pieces FEATHERS
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Above [1] Sculpture of Huitzilopochtli Aztec, Mexico (1350-1521 AD) Green-coloured metamorphic rock 6.7 × 4.2 × 4.7 cm Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac – Paris Inv. no. 71.1930.100.43 Next page [2] Snake-Quetzalcoatl Aztec, Mexico (1350-1521 AD) Volcanic rose-coloured rock 30 × 54 × 54 cm Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac – Paris Inv. no. 71.1887.155.1 1. The Tlatoani, literally ‘he who speaks’ in Nahuatl, designates the highest Aztec leader. Representing military and religious power, he is often mentioned in the West using the terms king or emperor. 2. Diego Durán (Seville ca. 1537-1588): Dominican monk who lived in New Spain. From 1576 to 1581, he wrote The History of the Indies of New Spain.
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THE MASS OF SAINT GREGORY A mixed message1
PASCAL MONGNE
Of the 180 colonial works of New Spain created with feathers that have survived to this day (chalices, tabernacles, crosses, statues of saints, three-dimensional biblical scenes, liturgical garments, mitres and chasubles), ones that portray sacred images are the most numerous. Among them, the Mass of Saint Gregory at the Musée des Jacobins in Auch has a very special place, not only in the history of the colonial arts of the New World, but also, and above all, in the history of the mixing of cultures between Europe and the indigenous Americas.2 THE MATERIALS OF THE MASS The Mass of Saint Gregory at the Musée des Jacobins in Auch [3] rests on a 68 by 56 cm wooden panel. The entire work was composed on this base, in keeping with the techniques specific to featherwork mosaics. Ten colours can be noted in the work, including blue (perhaps cotinga feathers), which covers a large part of the painting, and green (probably hummingbird and quetzal). The painting was originally edged with a frame that was probably dismantled in order to salvage the precious metal it contained. Gold, or at least copper, also existed on the work itself, depicting various objects (Roman helmet, coins, chalice, tiara, nails, pineapple, etc.). The metal was extracted at some unknown date and then replaced by a paste or resin painted in ochre yellow. A LATIN TEXT PAULO III PONTIFICI MAXIMALE – IN MAGNA
The image itself is surrounded by a text written entirely in feathers. This text, in Latin, indicates that the work was composed in Mexico, during Pope Paul III’s pontificate and Don Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin’s governance (Huanitzin was an Aztec governor appointed by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain), in 1539, under the supervision of Fray Pedro de Gante. This text is a document of primary importance because it identifies the work’s location and date, and those who commissioned it: the Franciscans, particularly the renowned Fray Pedro de Gante, creator of the School of San Jose de los Naturales and protector of indigenous art.3
INDIARUM URBE MEXICO – COMPOSITA DOMINO DIDACO GUBERNA – TORI CURA FRATRIS PETRI A GANTE MINORITAE A.D. 1539
THE MASS OF SAINT GREGORY AND ITS LEGEND When Pope Saint Gregory I (Saint Gregory the Great, 540-604) [2] presented the Eucharistic species during mass, one of the participants questioned the Presence of Christ in the consecrated host. Then, at the request of the Pope, Christ appeared, surrounded by the instruments of the Passion. FEATHERS
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1. This article is a summary translated from Spanish of a text published by Pascal Mongne ‘La Huella de los Tlacuilos’ in Baessler Archiv, 2013/2014, pp.7-27. 2. Martinez del Rio de Redo, 1992, 1993; Mongne 1994, 2004, 2013, 2014. Russo et al., 2006, 2015. 3. J Garcia-Icazbalceta, 1972; Kieckens, 1880.
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THE TECHNIQUES OF AZTEC FEATHERWORKING
PASCAL MONGNE
THE SOURCES OF MEXICAN FEATHERWORK ART The main source in this field can be found in the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (General History of the Things of New Spain), compiled between 1540 and 1585 by Aztec informants, supervised by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún. The book, also known as the Florentine Codex, was in fact a genuine encyclopaedia about the Aztec world and may be considered the first ethnographic collection dedicated to this culture. BIRDS AND AZTEC FEATHERWORKING Of the some ten thousand species of birds in the world recorded by ornithologists, more than four thousand are found in the Americas.1 The most numerous and ‘spectacular’ of these are found in tropical, humid zones. Of this impressive number, it appears that only a small proportion was, and is still, used in traditional featherworking. This is notably the case for Middle America (southern Mexico and Central America) where, of the one thousand five hundred species (an approximate figure) that inhabit this region, very few seem to have been used in ceremonial featherworking. According to the main source on the topic of birds, the ornithological inventory of Book XI of the Florentine Codex by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, of the 125 birds identified in Central Mexico, only about 20 were used by Aztec featherworkers. The list below provides a brief presentation of them:2 – Quetzal or resplendent quetzal/trogon (Pharomachrus mocinno): Quetzaltototl in Nahuatl (‘bird [with] beautiful long and green feathers’), the most famous bird of Mexican featherworking, characterized by its two long tail feathers (for the male). – Mexican trogon (Trogonus mexicanus): Tzinitzcan (‘he with feathers black like obsidian’). – Lovely cotinga (Cotinga amabilis): Xiuhtototl (‘turquoise bird’). – Montezuma oropendola or Montezuma cacique (Gymnostinops montezuma): Zaquan (or Zacuan). – Casique or weaverbird (Cassidrix Palustris): Tzanal (or Tzanatl). – Motmot (Momotus Lessonii): Xiuhquechol (‘turquoise bird with a neck in motion’). – Scarlet macaw (Ara Macao), also called Papagayo or Guacamayo: Alo in Nahuatl. – Hyacinth macaw or arara (Ara ararauna), perhaps the military macaw (Ara militaris): Cuitlatexotli (‘silvery blue’). – Aztec parakeet (Aratinga azteca): Quiliton. – White-fronted amazon (Amazona albifrons): Cocho or Cochohuitl. – Red-crowned amazon (Amazona viridigenalis): Tlalacuetzali (‘flame-coloured’).
FEATHERS
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1. BirdLife International, 2004. 2. Mongne, 2012.
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THE FEATHERS OF RESISTANCE
FABIEN FERRER-JOLY GÉRARD PRIET
The histories of the Aztec and Inca civilisations present many similarities. Both underwent rapid development and saw their hegemony spread across huge territories before suddenly collapsing when faced with the arrival of the conquistadors. They shared a similar and tragic fate, which would nevertheless reveal notable differences in the acculturation process undertaken by the Spaniards. In fact, the two viceroyalties are distinguished by markedly different approaches, which may be partially explained by the personalities of the two conquerors, Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. In his conquest of the lands of the Mexica peoples, Cortés came bearing a civilising project. From early on, he wanted to entrust the evangelisation of these new lands to the regular clergy and, especially, to the Franciscans, with whom he was very close through family ties. In 1523, three Franciscan monks travelled from Flanders to Mexico. Among them was a certain Fray Pedro de Gante, whose actions were decisive in the blossoming of a new society with mixed cultural contours. Cortés’s enlightened but nevertheless firm attitude toward the perceived idolatry of the Aztecs contributed to their abandonment of the principal indigenous cults and to their adoption of Christian religion. After an iconoclastic period, during which the destruction of temples and idols was a priority, the friars appear to have evolved in their practise. They understood that the best way for the new religion to take root with the indigenous population was to induce people into appropriating it for themselves. From then on, the missionaries adopted a more conciliatory attitude and accepted a certain number of compromises in their evangelical mission. The architecture of religious edifices is one of the best examples. A large loggia was added to the façade of certain churches so as to accommodate the officiating priest who would preach to the congregation which remained outside on the square. This practice reflected pre-Columbian rites practised outside in front of temples. Another example is the art school created at the initiative of Fray Pedro de Gante, which quickly integrated Aztec artisans like the amantecas (master featherworkers) and a culturally mixed religious art germinated in a place where Western and local influences merged. The Christian featherwork objects created in this workshop remain to this day the most emblematic testaments to this period of transition and fusion. Unlike Mexico and the project of Cortés, Pizzarro’s ambitions seem more prosaic and tended to be limited to exploiting the conquered territories in the huge Tahuantinsuyu (Inca Empire). Probably motivated by internal struggles that undermined his own camp and by fierce Inca resistance, Pizarro considered the conversion of the local populations of secondary importance and devoted himself, first and foremost, to administering his conquests. FEATHERS
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THE ‘FEATHERED’ INDIAN or the caricature of the Americas
PASCAL MONGNE
Because of its distance from Europe, its geography, the character and history of the peoples who live there, for five centuries the American world has constantly occupied a highly peculiar place that has been marked by the history and mentalities of the Old World. Since their first contact with Europeans, the Americas have been described and interpreted with regard to the political and intellectual interests that have guided the Old World. Attracting adventurers, conquerors and elites, inspiring artists and learned folk, fascinating the religious, philosophers and men of science, even reaching the general public with its appetite for ‘savagery,’ spectacular discoveries and catastrophes, the New World was thus dressed, covered over and masked in multiple ways by a shifting and constantly renewed image. This ‘image’ arose from the many accounts that came from the Americas: tales of conquests, journeys and explorations (authentic or invented); an ‘image’ given by the objects brought back in the thousands to the Old World: works of ‘art’ or simple expressions of everyday life, infinitely varied by their nature, geographical and cultural origins and by the conditions in which they were collected; an ‘image’ created in Europe – américaineries, we could say – a genuine reinvention in terms of both themes and mediums: engravings, paintings and photographs, sculptures and architectural elements, philosophical essays and adventure novels, musical pieces and operas, stage show sets, popular illustrations, cinema and advertisements. Within this protean imagery, the feather held a dominating, major place – of course, it did so by its nature, its particular techniques and the role that it actually played in indigenous societies, but most of all by the interest that learned Europe brought to bear on it. Right from the first contact, the feather became the symbol of the Americas and of the cultures that had developed there; not the only symbol, it is true, but certainly the most visible symbol, and one that is omnipresent in collections of objects as well as in Western imagery, mainly through the headdresses and clothes composed of this surprising material.1 FIRST THERE WAS THE INDIAN As we know, this name, now universally understood, is the result of an enormous confusion that is perhaps comprehensible, but fraught with consequences, arising from Christopher Columbus’s conviction that he had reached the Far East of Asia, specifically the marshes of India. This belief would endure among his successors for at least thirty years. FEATHERS
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1. Other symbols of the Americas also existed, including certain animals and plants (crocodile, armadillo, parrot, pineapple, corn, tomato, cactus, etc.) and, even more, customs judged according to ethnocentrism (nudity, cannibalism, human sacrifice, etc.).
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