Source Gallica.bnf.fr - BnF
© musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, photo Léo Delafontaine
It’s the story of an island in the southwestern Pacific with 800 different languages and a magical bird branching out into 45 families. This bird is so important to the life of the island that parents often give a child the name of the bird as a promise of character. In New Guinea, humans and non humans are considered reciprocal partners. To people of the island, the bird is connecting society to spiritual forces and the living to their ancestors. “To you they are birds. To me, they are the ancestral voices in the forest,” explained Yubi Meyo, singer, composer and expert of the Bosavi forest on this island.
The bird is even on the national flag of the country.
This island is New Guinea and this bird is the bird of Paradise - “Paradisier”, in French. The Musée du Quai Branly, per usual, has staged an exhibition full of surprises and magic around this extraordinary bird. The exhibition, called Plumes du Paradis, blends natural science, art, sociology, anthropology, religion, commerce, geography and fashion.
This unique bird also lives in eastern Indonesia and eastern Australia. Its power of amazement comes from the elaborate mating strategies of the species. With each generation, females, whose appearance is less exuberant, refine their choice of partner, driving the males to develop ever more sophisticated ways to seduce them. Male birds of paradise may spend years practicing and refining their courtship displays before reaching maturity. “Their flamboyant plumage, theatrical postures and suspended acrobatic dances are the product of unusually intense sexual selection,” explains the museum.
The creativity of the bird of Paradise, its ability to produce enchantment and to create beauty is intriguing. It asks this simple question: Is creativity solely the privilege of humans, as we usually think?
Photo Dustin Chen
The discovery of the wonderful bird starts with the navigator and explorer Ferdinand Magellan, early in the 16th Century. The first around the world sailing expedition, opened the door to others which brought back birds of Paradise feathers. They remained mysterious for a long time. No one could understand what they were. At first, the feathers were considered as a gift from God or exotica presented in wonder rooms or “cabinets of curiosities”.
As it expanded, the commerce of the Bird of Paradise drew a new cartography of the world, blending trade routes, scientific discoveries, art, politics and even religion. The bird connected vastly different countries and societies - urban, artistic, commercial and intellectual centers from Asia, Europe and America. Countries and societies met, traded, influenced each other as they were discovering each other’s culture. All this thanks to the Bird of Paradise.
At the end of the 19th Century, the whole world became mad about the exotic bird’s feathers. The paradox is that the celebrated beauty of the bird was also what is threatening its extinction. Around 1910, just in Paris, there were 350 plumassiers (feather workers), 34 suppliers and 65 traders. The bird was generating sales of over 100 million francs - a colossal amount. 50,000 people earned their living through their connection to the bird. Each year, between 1905 and 1920, between 30,000 and 80,000 skins from the bird were shipped to Europe from New Guinea and the Molucca islands, something totally unsustainable, of course. This gigantic commerce triggered the first movements to protect nature and animal species, usually founded by women activists.
As often in the history of humans, we threaten what we desire most. The Musée du Quai Branly exhibition is both an enchantment and a lesson.
~ Jean-Sébastien Stehli
Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac. Photo Pauline Guyon
Plumes du Paradis. Voyages d’un oiseau extraordinaire de Nouvelle Guinée. Musée du Quai Branly. Until November 8. quaibranly.fr
