Trail of Feathers In Search of the Birdmen of Peru Tahir Shah [Hardcover]

With its rich pre-Hispanic heritage, the Andes and the Amazon, recent years have seen Perú welcoming more than its fair share of adventure tourists. Trial of Feathers tells of Tahir Shah's intriguing journey to uncover what lies behind the remarkable "birdmen" legends--from textiles of ancient cultures from Perú's Atacama Desert showing flying men; and accounts of a 16th-century Spanish monk who stated that indigenous people were able to fly. Travelling in areas overrun by tourists, and then into remote parts of the Amazon, Shah book throws up an unexpectedly powerful mystical heart even in the midst of what is now a familiar country. The climax and focal point is Shah's journey up a remote tributary of the Amazon in search of the Shuar people, who are believed to be descendants of the Atacameño peoples who gave rise to the legends.

No stranger to the magic of distant countries--his previous book, Sorcerer's Apprentice, confronted the magicians of India--Shah's own "flight" leads him to persuasive explanations of both the legends of aviation and of Perú's most mysterious phenomenon, the Nazca Lines. Both erudite and entertaining, Trail of Feathers is a timely book. In writing about secrets from an apparently well-worn destination, Shah restores something of the mystery of distant places in an age when it is possible to believe that most things are seen and known. --Toby Green

Enthralled by the chronicle of a 16th-century Spanish monk, which said that the Incas 'flew like birds' over the jungle, and by the recurring theme of flying in Peruvian folklore, Tahir Shah set out to discover whether the Incas really did fly or glide above the jungles of Peru. Or was it flight of a different kind, inspired by powerful drugs? After gathering equipment in London - and advice, not least from Wilfred Thesiger - the long quest begins, in the mountains of Peru, with a trek to Machu Picchu, the Incas' most sacred city. Then on to the mountain city of Cusco and a mysterious island on Lake Titicaca, before the trail of clues leads to the coast and through the desert, to the immense animal-like etchings which form the Nazca Lines and a remote burial ground for 30,000 mummified corpses. And finally to an epic river-journey up the Amazon to discover the secrets of the Shuar, a tribe of legendary savagery. In the course of this journey the author discovers much about the Spanish treatment of the Incas, Peruvian folklore and magic, the great but brief Amazon rubber boom of the 19th century, head-shrinking, shamanic knowledge and plant-based hallucinogens. Even for a traveller so used to surreal adventures, there are many strange encounters - some gruesome, some hilarious - among madmen and dreamers, sorcerers, con-men and jungle experts, before he can at last discover the truth about the Birdmen of Peru.

Tahir Shah was born in 1966 into the Afghan nobility, the Saadat of Paghman. His wife is from Bombay and they met during his travels for Beyond the Devil's Teeth. A freelance writer and journalist, he has written widely on the Near and Middle East and India.