Fragment: Headdress Item Number: 3263/82 from the MOA: University of British Columbia
Feather plume from a headdress(?). Individual yellow parrot feathers, streaked with light green and light orange, with braided plant fibre attached to their ends. All braids are bound together, securing the feathers in a bundle. Additional black thread tied around the plume, slightly above the braids.
Streaks of orange and green in the feathers were created with tapirage. The effect is achieved by rubbing the venom of a toad on the plucked bird skin before the feathers grow in.
Collected in Peru before the 1970s by Ina VanStan, a Professor of Textiles and Clothing at the Florida State College for Women (Florida State University) from the 1940s to c. 1966. VanStan later gifted her collection to the donor. A large amount of the donation was used for teaching at the University of Alberta while others were mainly small study fragments.