Bamileke Headdress, Cameroon

Midnight purple fur-ball of plumes, dense enough to swallow a spotlight.

This contemporary Bamileke feather headdress is Bamileke, from Cameroon, Central Africa, and is contemporary. Feathers are used in headdresses in many parts of the world, valued for their lightness, color and the way they move with the wearer. Tightly packed circular mass of fine plumes in saturated indigo, darkest in the middle and finely spiky at the rim. A scattering of pale threads shows through the surface like tiny stars. It is 7 inches high and 30 in diameter.

Dark, plush, and very sure of itself.