Headdress

Headdress made from a hide with the hair from the animal, possibly a buffalo, in the style of a bonnet. The frontal part is a band composed of narrow bark strips that have been wrapped with porcupine quills dyed in different colours (white, orange and yellow). Over these, the hide is cut in battlement formation and painted red with blue dots and the border is sewn in white. Behind these, there are horse hair dyed in orange. The headdress’s frontal part has two animal horns cut in half and emptied. To complete the detail, at the tip of one of the horns there is animal hair wrapped with vegetal fibre. At the back, it is decorated with locks of grey and black horse hair. This kind of headdress, a clear attribute of power, is less well known than the feather headdress. According to George Catlin (North American Indians. 1992), only warriors of higher rank could wear these type of pieces: “From afar you can distinguish a chief or warrior of such fame that he acquires the right to decorate his headdress with horns, which gives him an odd but majestic appearance at the same time.” It is usually made with a bonnet in buffalo hide that still has the hair, with a band around the forehead and a buffalo horn on each side, previously emptied so they are lighter. This piece formed part of a collection that came from the Archbishop of Toledo’s former library, later called Provincial and generally known as Borbón-Lorenzana, which became part of the National Archaeological Museum in 1869.