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Museum object · Jewelry and Adornment

Yellow feather hatband accessory worn by Cab Calloway

mid 20th-late 20th century

Smithsonian NMAAHC collection

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Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A feather accessory for hatbands worn by Cab Calloway. The feather accessory is a small bundle of yellow, gray-brown, white, and yellow spotted black feathers with calamuses bound together with black tape. The yellow flower at the back of the bunch has a solid yellow calamus, rachis, barbs, and afterfeathers. In front of the yellow feather is a gray-brown feather with solid gray-brown rachis, barbs, and afterfeathers. A thinner feather is bound in front brown feather. It has gray and brown mottled rachis and barbs that extends slightly above the tops of the yellow and brown feathers. In the very front, near the taped wrapped base, is a fragment of a small, yellow spotted, dark brown feather. The spots are divided by yellow speckled circular patterns and there is a patch of yellow afterfeathers below.

Sources & collection details

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — original record ↗

Source collection ↗

Catalog metadata · CC0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

Catalog reference: A2015.273.1.24.6

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