Bamileke Headdress, Cameroon

A white feather sun with pink flares, as if someone had spilled raspberry on a cloud.

This headdress is Bamileke, from Cameroon, Central Africa, contemporary, in chicken feather. Feather headdresses of this type, often called juju hats, are traditionally associated with dances and ceremonies in the Cameroon Grassfields, and fold up for storage when not worn. Cream feathers radiate from a dense central knot in overlapping rings. Hot pink tips are scattered throughout, clustering more thickly toward the center. The edge is soft and fringed. It is 7 inches high and 34 in diameter.

Folds flat, opens like a firework.