Palm fibre hat
Guyanas region, Surinam, Brazil? Indigenous people not documented.
18th century. Manicaria saccifera spath, called “tourloury” by colonists
in the 19th century
Probably entered the collections of the Academic Museum in 1824 when Louis Pictet de Pregny donated several “Caribbean” objects including a “tourloury hood”; context of creation not documented
MEG Inv. ETHAM K000336
One can get an idea of the “palmite bark bonnet” given to the Library by Butini from the one Albertus Seba himself received from Surinam: baptized a “natural hood from America”, it is reproduced in the sumptuous catalogue of his cabinet of natural curiosities. As for Butini and many others of his time, Indigenous objects were valued just as much for their materials as for their uses, linking these populations to the natural environment in which they lived. D. Buyssens
