Ceremonial costume accessory. Feather art. Lichiwayus Chakana. Aymara people, Bolivia Department of La Paz. 1750-1800. This delicate piece of feather art is part of a festive attire from the Bolivian Andes used during the Viceroyalty period and which is still in force until modern times. This “Chakana” is part of the attire of a ritual dance called “Lichiwayus” associated with the call of the snow before starting to work the land. The moisture produced by thawing penetrates the soil and eases the work of the plough. Due to the brittle nature of the material, most of the surviving feather mosaics are fairly modern creations, but archaeological excavations of high-altitude burial sites with little annual rainfall uncovered well-preserved centuries-old feathers as in the case of the specimen here. The Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Bowers Museum in California, and the Robert Institute of Archaeology. S. Peabody preserve Chakanas and body attire dating from the 18th and 19th centuries to the 20th century. Among the inventoried works, those of the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore of Bolivia also stand out. The iconography represented by zoomorphic forms of lions and snakes dates back to colonial times where they appear on coats of arms assigned to noble families descended from the Incas. We could be talking about heraldic emblems with which certain families were identified. This type of Lichiwayus Chakanas is made with 17 flat wooden slats placed horizontally and joined by strings that go through perforations in the upper and middle part of each of the slats. The raw materials identified are feathers, wood, animal fibre and cotton, while the plumage normally used in this type of work varies, using the following bird species; White Heron, Amazon Parrot, Purple-throated Cotinga, Collared Aurora, Blue-Yellow Macaw and Red Macaw. Guaman Poma de Ayala describes in his work Nueva Crónica y buen gobierno (New Chronicle and Good Government) the role and interaction of birds with human beings, highlighting the birds of the Andean region that were used as tribute payment to the Inca (…) while young people from twelve to eighteen years old took care of the herds of llamas or alpacas, 'they caught the birds called auchiua, yutu, quiuyo, tacami, auas, with ties or garters for entertainment and cut up the meat, and the feathers they kept for trading with the Incas, the “capac apocuna” and captains. Some time ago they had trained (between the ages of nine and twelve) in catching little birds… which they call polished birds, quinte, uaychau, chayna, urpay, and other birds that exist; The meat was made into “charqui petaquillas” and the feathers were kept for “pluma” and “cunpi de pluma” and other gallantries of the Inca, heads and captains of the Aucamayoc Cuna…” (Millones and Schaedel, 1980: 61-65). In the work Arte Plumario en el Altiplano Paceño: Historia, danza y técnicas de los plumajes en las comunidades Aymara del departamento de la Paz, Bolivia (Featherwork art in the Altiplano Paceño: History, dance and plumage techniques in the Aymara communities of the department of La Paz, Bolivia), they explain that the description of South American fauna, and in some cases of the flora, was a task that some explorers, soldiers, civil servants and religious carried out in response to the request for information from the authorities, eager to learn about and make the most of the advantages offered by the new continent. In the descriptions made by chroniclers and travellers about the animals that inhabited the new continent, they made much of whether they lived in water, either lakes, rivers or seas, were land animals or those of the air. In these various scenarios, birds are the only animals that could be found in the three environments —water, land, and sky—, and from this, be recognized as messengers of the divine and have certain supernatural characteristics. In this regard, Andrés Gutiérrez Usillos mentioned that “birds are usually associated with the sacred, since the ability to fly and ascend to the heavens is only possessed by divinities. The bird can be an incarnation of divinity or an epiphany, that is, the vehicle through which the gods manifest themselves, a messenger between the gods and human beings” (Gutiérrez Usillos, 2002: 313). Bibliography BETANCOURT Carla Jaimes. EL PODER DE LAS PLUMAS Colección de arte plumario del Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, según la cadena de producción. Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore Fundación Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia La Paz, Bolivia. 2015 GISBERT, Teresa. 2008. El paraíso de los pájaros parlantes: la imagen del otro en la cultura andina. 3ra ed. La Paz: Plural Editores. GISBERT, Teresa. 2008. Iconografía y mitos indígenas en el arte. 4th ed. (Ed.) Editorial Gisbert y Cia. La Paz. GISBERT, Teresa, Silvia ARZE y Martha CAJÍAS. 2008. Arte textil y mundo andino. La Paz: Gisbert y Cía. GUTIÉRREZ Usillos, Andrés. 2002. Dioses, símbolos y alimentación en los Andes: interrelación hombre-fauna en el Ecuador prehispánico. (Ed.) Ediciones Abya Yala. Quito. GUAMÁN Poma de Ayala, Felipe. [1615]1980. El Primer Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno. 21st century. Mexico. MILLONES, Luis y R. P. SCHAEDEL. 1980. Plumas para el sol: comentarios a un documento sobre cazadores y cotos de zada en el antiguo Peru. Boletín del Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos 9 (1-2):59-88. VILLAROEL Salguerio Gloria, GUERREROS Burgoa Johnny and MUJICA Angulo Richard. Bolivia, La Paz, 2015. La Rebelión de los objetos. Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore. Reunión Anual de Etnología, 29. Bolivia. (Anales de la Reunión Anual de Etnología) This lot already has a permit for exportation as a cultural asset.