Module 9 Americas
Moctezuma’s headdress should be returned to Mexico. It is unknown whether the headdress actually belonged to the emperor, Moctezuma. This could mean that it may have been stolen and even if it weren’t, the indigenous community would appreciate having a part of their history and culture back. While looking at the headdress, it can serve as a reminder of what the culture was like to be able to make a headdress. It is proof of the hard work that the amanteca (in Nahuatl), feather worker, put into their culture to create a visually stunning and durable art piece.
The Aztecs were master feather-workers who put a lot of effort into making headdresses. To assemble Moctezuma’s headdress, 500 quetzal feathers were taken from 250 birds, who only have two or three tail feathers each. The feathers used on the headdresses were taken from colorful tropical birds. Although Moctezuma’s headdress contains mainly green quetzal feathers, there were other birds that provided different colored feathers. There were scarlet macaws, parrots, red spoonbills, and blue cotingas. Blue and green were the most valuable colors to use. More specifically, green quetzal was one of the rarest and sought after, referencing to quetzal meaning precious in Nahuatl. Now, the bird quetzal is an endangered species.
Feathers, jade, and turquoise were so valued that they were used to dress Aztec deity statues. Feathers symbolized fertility, abundance, wealth, and power. They were also a way for the people to connect with the divine since the people would also wear feather headdresses. This kind of headdress was most likely used as a military insignia and not a crown. It would be placed on a bamboo stick and then positioned on a soldier’s back. Some evidence suggests that this headdress could have also been a part of Aztec royalty and used for rituals, such as when impersonating the god Quetzalcoatl.
It is said that Moctezuma gave various items to Cortes when they met. Among the luxurious items were more headdresses, gold and silver objects, and clothes. The items were sent to Spain by Cortes to Charles V. in a diplomatic gesture to please him, since they were something that Spain had never had. Once Charles V’s brother, Ferdinand, got married, Charles V. gave him the headdress which was stored in Ambras Castle in Tyrol, Austria. In recent years, Mexico has made requests to have the headdress returned but has been denied by Austrian authorities. Austrian authorities claim that the headdress is too fragile to make a trip across the Atlantic.
To this day, there are only a few artists in Mexico that continue feather-work alive. With so few artists able to continue the art and so few headdresses that have survived, it would be considerate to give Mexico back the headdress for its history. A lot of hard work was put into creating the headdress and if the headdress did not in fact belong to Motecuhzoma, then it was not given away from the rightful owner.
Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. “AZTEC ART - PART 2.” Foundation for the advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, INC. http://www.famsi.org/research/aguilar/Aztec_Art_Part2.pdf
Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Beth Harris, "Aztec feathered headdress," in Smarthistory, August 10, 2015, accessed March 19, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/feathered-headdress-aztec/.
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