A bad-tempered girl forms an unlikely bond with a peregrine falcon.

Award-winning author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh brings an ancient Mesoamerican creation myth to life Long ago, the gods of Mesoamerica set out to create humans. They tried many times during each sun, or age. When all their attempts failed and the gods grew tired, only one did not give up: Quetzalcóatl—the Feathered Serpent. To continue, he first had to retrieve the sacred bones of creation guarded by Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the underworld. Gathering his staff, shield, cloak, and shell ornament for good luck, Feathered Serpent embarked on the dangerous quest to create humankind. Award-winning author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh brings to life the story of Feathered Serpent, one of the most important deities in ancient Mesoamerica. With his instantly recognizable, acclaimed art style and grand storytelling, Tonatiuh recounts a thrilling creation tale of epic proportions.

Painstakingly constructed by hand of plant fiber and precious feathers from endemic birds of Hawai‘i, feather cloaks and capes provided spiritual protection to Hawaiian chiefs for centuries while proclaiming their royal status. Few of the artworks known as nā hulu ali‘i, or royal feathers, survive today except in museums and private collections. Through photographs and scholarly essays, Royal Hawaiian Featherwork highlights approximately seventy-five rare examples of the finest featherwork capes and cloaks (‘ahu‘ula) extant, as well as royal staffs of feathers (kāhili), feather lei (lei hulu manu), helmets (mahiole), feathered god images (akua hulu manu), and related eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings and works on paper. With their brilliant coloring and abstract compositions of crescents, triangles, circles, quadrilaterals, and lines, the artworks are both beautiful and rich in cultural significance. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, featherworks were key items of indigenous Hawaiian diplomacy, used to secure political alliances and agreements, worn as battlefield regalia, and seized as spoils from defeated chiefs. Later, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the featherworks—used in trading and gifts to foreign visitors—became symbols of Hawaiian heritage and cultural pride. This stunningly illustrated volume also serves as the catalogue to accompany the first exhibition of Hawaiian featherwork to be staged on the U.S. continent, scheduled for a six-month run starting in late August 2015 at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The book and exhibition provide an overdue opportunity for the public to discover the central role these artworks played in the culture and history of the Hawaiian Islands, to explore their unparalleled technical craftsmanship, and to discover an aesthetic tradition unique to the Hawaiian archipelago. Essays by: Samuel M. Ohukaniōhia Gon III, Marques Marzan, Maile Andrade, Noelle Kahanu, Betty Kam, Adrienne Kaeppler, Stacy L. Kamehiro, Christina Hellmich, and Roger Rose.

Ahmed is a poor orphan boy who lives with a travelling circus, working for cruel Madame Saleem, the circus-owner. But his life is changed when he finds a beautiful egg in the forest, and brings it back to the circus. From the egg hatches a child, a little girl called Aurelia, a child who, as she grows, sprouts soft feathers that turn into wings. But Madame Saleem keeps Aurelia in a cage, to be her top attraction at the circus, and never lets her out. Ahmed knows he must free Aurelia the Feather Girl from her cruel cage or she will die. One night he creeps into Madame Saleem's caravan, takes the key to Aurelia's cage and lets her fly free. Now Ahmed's life becomes even harder, as the circus-owner takes revenge for losing her star attraction. But one night Aurelia comes to him in a dream and brings him a feather... and Ahmed begins to hope again. Dreams and memories are the key in this beautiful and fantastic tale of magic, enchantment and freedom from a master storyteller and illustrator of children's books.

Enter the world of Scottish folklore with this unique hardcover guide. Retellings of traditional tales, full-color photographs of knitted costumes inspired by the stories, plus patterns for simpler versions of the original designs.

Weaving is more than just a product of manual skills. From the simple rourou (food basket) to the prestigious kahukiwi (kiwi feather cloak), weaving is endowed with the very essence of the spiritual values of M ori people. The first M ori settlers brought the knowledge of weaving with them. In Aotearoa they found new plant materials, including the versatile harakeke (New Zealand flax). They also incorporated feathers from birds and the skin and hair of their dogs. They wove practical items necessary for everyday life. But they also wove exceptional items such as fine mats and wall panels and, above all, kakahu (cloaks) of immense significance, which bestow mana (prestige) on both weaver and wearer. This major new publication opens the storeroom doors of the Te Papa Tongarewa M ori collections, illuminating the magnificent kakahu in those collections and the art and tradition of weaving itself. Five informative chapters, each written by an expert contributor, reveal the history and significance of weaving, every page sumptuously illustrated with detailed, all-new photographs by Te Papa photographer Norm Heke. In addition, forty rare and precious kakahu are featured specially within this book, with glossy colour detail illustrations of each, plus historical and contextual images and graphic diagrams of weaving techniques. These are accompanied by engaging descriptions bringing together information on every cloak its age, materials, and weaving technique with quotes from master weavers and other experts, stories of the cloaks, details of their often remarkable provenance. A full glossary, illustrated guide to cloak types, and index are included.

The history of Hawaii may be said to be the story of arrivals -- from the eruption of volcanoes on the ocean floor 18,000 feet below to the first hardy seeds that over millennia found their way to the islands, and the confused birds blown from their migratory routes. Early Polynesian adventurers sailed across the Pacific in double canoes. Spanish galleons en route to the Philippines and British navigators in search of a Northwest Passage were soon followed by pious Protestant missionaries, shipwrecked sailors, and rowdy Irish poachers escaped from Botany Bay -- all wanderers washed ashore. This is true of many cultures, but in Hawaii, no one seems to have left. And in Hawaii, a set of myths accompanied each of these migrants -- legends that shape our understanding of this mysterious place. Susanna Moore pieces together the story of late-eighteenth-century Hawaii -- its kings and queens, gods and goddesses, missionaries, migrants, and explorers -- a not-so-distant time of abrupt transition, in which an isolated pagan world of human sacrifice and strict taboo, without a currency or a written language, was confronted with the equally ritualized world of capitalism, Western education, and Christian values.