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Headdress

Label TextStatus hair 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."

Object number81.17.987

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

Credit LineGift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

Dimensions11 1/4 x 6 5/16 x 10 in. (28.6 x 16 x 25.4 cm)

MediumFeathers, human hair, fibers, and metal