Katherine White often collected art from people wearing it. While on a trip through East Africa in 1978, she picked up wigs made by the Karamajong of eastern Uganda at a shop in Nairobi. Later that week, she wrote about an encounter with a man in Kenya: "Saw a marvelous old man with a headdress with ostrich plumes and a woven brass wire lip plug. I asked for a photograph and the lip plug. We struck a bargain for 20 shillings. And then he tried to remove the plug. It got so heart rending, I couldn't watch. It was grown in. The poor old man was frantic. Finally it was delivered to me, and I wasn't sure if I could touch it. I felt I had part of that old man's anatomy in my hand."
Feathers, human hair, fibers, and metal
11 1/4 x 6 5/16 x 10 in. (28.6 x 16 x 25.4 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.987
Not currently on view
Resources
Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, African Panoplies: Art for Rulers, Traders, Hunters, and Priests, Apr. 21 - Aug. 14, 1988.
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Untold Story, November 14, 2003 - November 14, 2004
Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.
