Harry Neufeld has been married to his wife,
Tiala, since 1974, after having met in India. Tiala, an
Ao Naga of Northeast India, whose father was chief and
the most respected elder of the Ao tribe, was sent to
college in Darjeeling for a Western education, and had
traveled to Europe for some months before returning to
India. From 1980, Tiala and Harry have been collecting
fine quality authentic Nagaland primitive art and
ethnographic materials, including but not limited to:
statuary (wooden figures and small carved pieces),
costume wear, jewelry (beads, brass, shell, ivory,
crystal), basketry, decorative items (brass, animal
parts, wood) for both home and personal wear, textiles,
headhunter status pieces, and weaponry. The collection
includes materials from many of the eighteen or so Naga
tribes, with the greatest volume coming from the Mon
area, home to the Konyak tribe.
In addition, Harry's business of antique ivory
jewelry, made almost exclusively from recycled parts of
old dowry ivory worn by women for generations in Gujarat
and Rajasthan, India, has yielded a large collection of
beautiful, wearable pieces, some original and unbroken,
some worked with sterling silver, and others with set
semi-precious stones. |