When you look at this Greater Bird of Paradise, you see the power of image. While evolutionary determinism unique to its home in New Guinea has endowed this specimen with a truly breathtaking external appearance, it has become an image of so much more than beauty in its journey through human culture. In its passage across diverse societies this bird has become an image of status, divinity, and evolutionary beauty. The associations man has assigned to this animal's image have in turn been reflected in its dynamic functions within certain cultures.

The most base image of the bird: beauty, developed from unique evolutionary forces beyond the realm of man. However, the distinctive visual characteristics exhibited by this bird attracted the attention of humans who would use its form as an image of worldly ideas.

Traditional New Guinean cultures have utilized bird-of-paradise plumage in ceremonial headdresses to represent social status throughout the entirety of their known history. Wealthy and distinguished tribesmen reflect their position through proportionally extravagant bird-of-paradise plumage within tribal and intertribal gatherings. 

The hierarchical distinction embodied by the bird within tribal culture contributed to its function as a trade mechanism, linking New Guinea with Southeast Asia and eventually Europe in a trade for paradise plumes and skins. Ownership of this unique luxury item would come to symbolize wealth and prestige among the upper classes in societies as disparate as Indonesia and Spain. 

As it spread into Europe in the 16th century, the bird transmitted a myth of divine origin supported by its exotic appearance and legless preparation by hunters. Thus, within Western civilization the bird-of-paradise became an image of not only status, but godliness. Its function resultantly diversified, utilized by English Kings James I and Charles I to further their own image of divine kingship. It became incorporated into religious art; and even within non-religious works its depiction was more heavenly than worldly. 

In the 20th century, the bird became a centerpiece of high fashion due to the societal connotations of its image. Birds-of-paradise suffered near extinction at the hands of this fashion boom, and the overhunting it incurred.