Chimú featherwork was exceptionally flamboyant and required the plumage of a number of different bird species to achieve the glorious array of colours. These two works alone feature yellow, light and dark blue, red, green, turquoise and black feathers. The coloured feathers may correlate with the plumage of the macaw (yellow and turquoise), Paradise Tanager, Razor-billed Curassow or Guanay Cormorant (black), Aratinge parakeet and Amazona parrot (green) and the Chilean Flamingo (red–orange), birds known to have been used by the Chimú.¹ They, like other ancient Peruvians, were also renowned for changing the colour of a bird’s feathers through a process known as tapirage, in which the feathers of a live bird were plucked, and toad’s blood and other substances were rubbed into the bird’s body. The feathers subsequently grew back in a different colour (see cat. 39).²

The tabard was formed with a central slit for the head to pass through, the two halves of the garment displayed prominently as panels front and back. The more elaborately decorated side would have most likely been worn to the front, with the simple bold yellow to the back. Each feather was individually stitched to the undyed cream backing fabric, a narrow section of which is now exposed across the shoulders. The motif of eight birds morphing into four cats, and the mirror red and blue wave pattern below, demonstrate the inventive and abstract nature of many Chimú feathered items. The repeated wave, also seen on the crown, was one of the most popular designs. While more stylised than seen in the art of earlier Peruvian cultures, from the length of their bills, the birds appear to be seabirds, probably pelicans.

The structure of the crown was created using a cylindrical silver and copper base, to which the feathers were applied. Smaller feathers were carefully stuck down, to create the light-blue band and colourful wave pattern. The direction in which the feathers were placed varies between these two sections—the middle section is composed of horizontal feathers, while the waves lie vertically. Long yellow feathers, most likely tail feathers, were used for the panache around the top. Two lengths of twisted fabric cord held the crown on the top of the head. This crown appears far too small to have fitted onto an adult head. It was either made for a child or, alternatively, placed in a grave for a symbolic or ritual purpose. Miniature feathered textile offerings have been found at the Huaca de la Luna site.³

Simeran Maxwell

1. Ann Pollard Rowe, Costumes and featherwork of the Lords of Chimor: Textiles from Peru’s north coast, Washington D.C.: The Textile Museum 1984, pp. 175–76.

2. Ruben E. Reina and Jon F. Pressman, ‘Harvesting feathers’, in Ruben E. Reina, Kenneth M. Kensinger (eds), The gift of birds: Featherwork of native South American peoples, Philadelphia: University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 1991, p. 112.

3. Santiago Uceda and Heidi King, ‘Chimú feathered offerings from Huaca de la Luna’, in Heidi King et al., Peruvian featherworks: Art of the pre-Columbian era, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2012, p. 74.

Chimú featherwork was exceptionally flamboyant and required the plumage of a number of different bird species to achieve the glorious array of colours. These two works alone feature yellow, light and dark blue, red, green, turquoise and black feathers. The coloured feathers may correlate with the plumage of the macaw (yellow and turquoise), Paradise Tanager, Razor-billed Curassow or Guanay Cormorant (black), Aratinge parakeet and Amazona parrot (green) and the Chilean Flamingo (red–orange), birds known to have been used by the Chimú.¹ They, like other ancient Peruvians, were also renowned for changing the colour of a bird’s feathers through a process known as tapirage, in which the feathers of a live bird were plucked, and toad’s blood and other substances were rubbed into the bird’s body. The feathers subsequently grew back in a different colour (see cat. 39).²

The tabard was formed with a central slit for the head to pass through, the two halves of the garment displayed prominently as panels front and back. The more elaborately decorated side would have most likely been worn to the front, with the simple bold yellow to the back. Each feather was individually stitched to the undyed cream backing fabric, a narrow section of which is now exposed across the shoulders. The motif of eight birds morphing into four cats, and the mirror red and blue wave pattern below, demonstrate the inventive and abstract nature of many Chimú feathered items. The repeated wave, also seen on the crown, was one of the most popular designs. While more stylised than seen in the art of earlier Peruvian cultures, from the length of their bills, the birds appear to be seabirds, probably pelicans.

The structure of the crown was created using a cylindrical silver and copper base, to which the feathers were applied. Smaller feathers were carefully stuck down, to create the light-blue band and colourful wave pattern. The direction in which the feathers were placed varies between these two sections—the middle section is composed of horizontal feathers, while the waves lie vertically. Long yellow feathers, most likely tail feathers, were used for the panache around the top. Two lengths of twisted fabric cord held the crown on the top of the head. This crown appears far too small to have fitted onto an adult head. It was either made for a child or, alternatively, placed in a grave for a symbolic or ritual purpose. Miniature feathered textile offerings have been found at the Huaca de la Luna site.³

Simeran Maxwell

1. Ann Pollard Rowe, Costumes and featherwork of the Lords of Chimor: Textiles from Peru’s north coast, Washington D.C.: The Textile Museum 1984, pp. 175–76.

2. Ruben E. Reina and Jon F. Pressman, ‘Harvesting feathers’, in Ruben E. Reina, Kenneth M. Kensinger (eds), The gift of birds: Featherwork of native South American peoples, Philadelphia: University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 1991, p. 112.

3. Santiago Uceda and Heidi King, ‘Chimú feathered offerings from Huaca de la Luna’, in Heidi King et al., Peruvian featherworks: Art of the pre-Columbian era, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2012, p. 74.