Birds have long been related to shamans – the messengers of the spirits, their associations with crossing over into other worlds, with the ability to inhabit both our realm and that of the unseen. This bird figure, with its strangely familiar human-like face, was made in the South Pacific, sometime between 700 and 1550 AD.

Objects like this can illustrate a worldview before European conquest of their lands. A rich material culture existed across much of what we now call the central Americas, filled with symbolism and meaning, much of which finds its way into museum collections today, where questions around community, identity and hierarchies are still – quite rightly – asked and debated.