>Why this internet site?<
Very few collectors, either academic or traveling, have ever inquired about traditional feather work from its actual source. Very few people have ever asked feather work artisans about the symbolic meaning of the colors and birds used in their feather work. If the question were posed, the answer might have been; "We make it like this because our ancestors made it like this."
The work and the influence of the Amazonian basin tribes is so fleeting and misunderstood that many people do not understand how important it was, and is, because they do not have access to it. Thus, over the course of the next years and decades it is crucial for ethnological museums to bring their feather work collections together, so that they can be better admired and understood in the future. We must also bring the living decedents of these rich cultures together so that we can learn from them.
This site is dedicated to the feather work artisans and their descendents. It is also dedicated to the many Europeans and South Americans, who have maintained cultural diversity and remembered the indigenous roots of the past in a modern world that easily forgets its foundations.
Very few museums have made their entire collections available for a publicly accessible internet catalog. The so called “viewing magazines” are a rarity in Europe and a desirable goal over the next few years (The main attraction of the museums will still be their actual exhibits.).
Die virtuelle Öffnung der Magazine im Internet in Form von Fotos der Stücke, der Generalkataloge, der Sammlungsakten, Feldfotos usw. ermöglicht eine völlig neue Qualität der inhaltlichen Arbeit und des Ordnens der Bestände. Während bisher die wissenschaftliche Arbeit zu verstreut angelegten Teilsammlungen mit erheblichem Reiseaufwand und zeitintensiver Suche verbunden war, kann mit der Sichtung der Bestände zu Hause begonnen werden, gefolgt von der gezielten Untersuchung der herausgefilterten Objekte in den jeweiligen Museen.
It is helpful if these magazines are open for all to access (Internet) ideally, the search words and the digital format should be standardized throughout the different museum databases.
For over fifteen years museums in the Netherlands have digitalized their entire collections, i.e. the collection data are defined and entered into data bases, the individual pieces are individually photographed and, word lists, record sheets etc. were scanned in. In particular, The Netherlands Eighth Ethnological museum, compiled a "thesaurus" (a word list, a nomenclature) of all of its collections. This word list is continuously updated, extended and improved. It is the only tool of its kind that enables a time-efficient search for geographical and/or cultural regions and object references amongst a large volume of data (see for this: www.svcn.nl, www.tropenmuseum.nl).
Noteworthy, is a French museum in Paris, the Musée du quai Branly. Over the course of a few short years they photographed and digitalized their entire collection in an extremely organized and efficient manor. Their viewing catalog is currently accessible to everyone at www.quaibranly.fr in the Internet.
Currently, there no German Ethnology museums have made their collections entirely digitally accessible to the public. To my knowledge the Überseemuseum in Bremen (Germany) has photographed and digitalized a majority of their collections. However, these are not accessible to the public. The future has not yet begun with us…
Ethnological museums do not retain the historical property of their own countries because they focus on other cultures. When such unique and foreign articles are in the possession of a museum, then they should remain a common property; not a private property. Ideally, the museum should hold articles simply to retain and honor them, not to claim any sort of ownership. These things embody world cultural heritage of a special kind, since they link and connect diverse cultures with one another via historical collections.
This responsibility is often too large for the individual museums to carry out. Therefore it seems necessary in the future to assign one international or European acting institution (UNESCO?, ICOM?) or to found a new agency that can handle these responsibilities. On the one hand this agency would handle the receipt of the articles both financially and organizationally. It would also initiate a positive form of control, which would financially reward efforts of the museums with prize moneys, honors etc. There would also be negative sanctions that would enforce that the museums utilized their collections in an appropriate manor.
The feather work of the flat land Indians appears to be a form of art from the European point of view. However, these pieces more accurately represent the philosophy, myths and religion of their makers. All of these words standardize the physical and psychological correlation of a life which we could only understand-even partially comprehend-if we ourselves had lived for many years with these people.
In today’s world, there are very few people who live according to their traditional culture. Thus, understanding the cultures of the past, is not simple for most modern people because we have not experienced the cultures first hand. If we want to understand an artifact or custom from the past then we must undertake a laborious and intense method of research to discover its meaning and purpose. We know that each group of humans was distinct and unique in their traditions and way of life. Under no circumstance can we assume that these traditional groups were identical just because words like, “master art”, “tribal art”, “primitive art” and “non-European art” lead us to believe this.
These articles can be an important catalyst for understanding the thinking and life of other cultures and in turn help us to take our selves less seriously.
Even without deeper understanding we can see all of the spontaneous understanding, the aesthetic joy, the beauty of colors as well as the attention and patience that an experienced and industrious craftsmen had to offer.
Today, most museums cannot exactly formulate why or when their strict copywrite rules have been violated (which I have singed myself and will abide by). A goal for the future is that there must be virtual existence of museum collections available FOR ALL to access. This is particularly important for the living descendents of those who produce these articles in all parts of this world.
