Old civilizations of Inca land (1924) (20654457155)

Title: Old civilizations of Inca land
Identifier: civilis11mead (find matches)
Year: 1924 (1920s)
Authors: Mead, Charles W. (Charles Williams), 1845-1928
Subjects: Incas; Indians of South America
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: IMLS / LSTA / METRO



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HOUSEHOLD ARTS AND INDUSTRIES 41
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Feather=Work. ^Xlan)- of the licaddresscs and ponchos of feather-work found on mummies and in graves are works of art. The feather poncho is a shirt of cotton cloth, decorated with designs made by attach- ing differently colored feathers to it. These feathers are strung on strings that are as long as the poncho is wide. A string so prepared is placed horizontally across the garment and sewed to it. The second string of feathers is added to overlap in shingle fashion, and so on. The design had to be carefully planned out from the beginning, and the variously colored feathers so strung on the strings as to form the design very crudely. In the feather poncho shown in Fig. 19 the groundwork is yellow. The chief decoration is the roAv of scrolls in black; the others are narrow^ lines of red and blue. When the garment w-as completely covered with feathers many of the black scrolls would be covered in places by the yellow feathers. These over- lapping ends were trimmed away, by some cutting instru- ment, leaving the lines sharp and clear. Again, beautiful mosaic work was done by glueing small bits of feathers to cloth and wood. Metallurgy. The state of metallurgy is usually taken as an index of the degree of civilization attained by a people. However this may be, a glance at a good museum collection from Peru reveals ^vork in gold, silver, copper, and lead. Further, the objects fashioned of these metals show that casting in moulds, beating up tall cups from a single piece, soldering, and even plating or gilding one metal with another were understood. All this indicates a high level of achievement in the metal Fig. 20. Feather- work Technique. Method of attach- ing feathers to the poncho in Fig. 19.