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BELOW LEFT: Hunting
headdress, kandela.
Amazonia.
Feathers, wood, rush, vegetal fi ber,
cotton, beetle casings.
H: 102 cm.
Donated by zoologist Henry Larsen
in 1956.
MEG, inv. ETHAM 025431.
Photo © MEG, J. Watts.
Jewelry
BERG EN DAL—A show titled Sieraden—Makers & Dragers
(Jewelry—Made by, Worn by) featuring more than
700 ornaments from around the world is on view at the
Afrika Museum through June 2, 2019. It offers an overview
of the techniques and skills required to make them,
while also explaining how they are worn. The desire to
adorn oneself is as old as the world and the peoples in it,
who have long used a wide variety of materials to decorate
themselves, including everything from shells, fruits,
and seeds to precious metals and stones. Too much focus
often is paced on the material rather than on the craftsman,
and this exhibition is about honoring the maker.
It emphasizes ancestral techniques, casting light on the
histories of the peoples of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the
Americas who made them.
RIGHT: Earrings. Bororo;
Merure village, Mato Grosso,
Brazil. 1960s.
Shell, vegetal fi bers, feathers.
L: 6 cm.
Collected by Salesian missionary
Renato Maltoni in 1971. Donated
in 1976.
MEG, inv. ETHAM 038743.
Photo © MEG, J. Watts.
ABOVE: Gold rings by
Johanna Dahm.
LEFT: Berber woman in a silk
robe. Southern Morocco.
1940–1960.
Photo: G. Gillet.
MUSEUM NEWS
Amazonia by the Sea
NANTES—For a number of years now, the Musée d’Histoire
de Nantes du Château des Ducs de Bretagne has
been presenting an interestingly varied program of
events. Perhaps its proximity to the ocean connects the
city’s history to distant horizons. This season, it’s off to
Amazonia, and from June 15, 2019–January 19, 2020,
the museum will show Amazonie. Le chamane et la
pensée de la forêt (Amazonia: The Shaman and the Philosophy
of the Forest), the sensational exhibition that
was seen a few years ago at the Musée Ethnographique
de Genève. This is another opportunity to see featherwork
marvels from Amazonia from the notable collection
of this Swiss museum. These objects reveal a world of
shamanic practices and a symbiosis with nature. They
also provide an excellent lesson in an age in which the
importance of ecologically sound practices is becoming
ever more immediate.