U. U. Club.
* * * * *
"FEATHER IN YOUR CAP."
(Vol. ix., p. 220.)
In reply to MR. GATTY'S question, I beg to state that the Indian wears an
eagle's feather for every enemy he has slain. I have seen a boy of fifteen
thus decorated, and was assured that it had been lawfully won.
The feather is usually stuck into the hinder part of the turban, or
head-dress, and either projects straight out, or hangs down the back. This
is exactly the fashion in which the Chinese wear the peacock's feather; and
it also is a mark of distinction for warriors, a military institution
similar to our knighthood, or, perhaps, what knighthood once was. (See De
Guignes and Barrow, &c.) I think McKenzie speaks of the eagle's feather,
but cannot quote just now. According to Elphinstone, the "Caufirs of
Caubul" (Siah-posh?) stick a long feather in their turbans for every
Mussulman they have slain.
The similarity of style in wearing their feathers, and, above all, the
coincidence of both being the reward of merit, induces a belief that in
times long gone by a relationship may have existed between the Chinese and
the American; a belief that is strengthened by other and more curious
testimony than even this.
The head-dress, or coronet of upright feathers, to which MR. GATTY seems to
allude, I have never heard of, as associated with warlike deeds. The
coronet of feathers, moreover, does not appear to have been peculiar to
America. In the _Athenaeum_ for 1844 is given the representation of a naval
engagement, in which one party of the combatants "wear head-dresses of
feathers, such as are described in ancient Hindu records, and such as the
Indian Caciques wore when America was discovered by Columbus," &c. (p.
172.). Moreover, "the Lycians had caps adorned with crests, stuck round
with feathers," &c. (Meyrick's _Ancient Armour_, &c., vol. i. p. xviii.) We
may suppose this to have resembled the coiffure of the Mexican and other
North American tribes.
Mr. Rankin says the Peruvian Incas wore, as a distinction, two plumes on
the front of the head, similar to those represented in the portraits of
Tamerlane. (See _Conquest by the Mogols, &c._, p. 175.) I have seen, among
the Wyandots of Sandusky, heads which one might suppose had been the
originals of the portraits given in his plate: turban made of
gaudy-coloured silk, with two short thick feathers stuck upright in front;
the one red, the other white tipped with blue, the great desideratum being
to have them of different colours, as strongly contrasted as possible.
The Kalmucs, when they celebrate any great festival, always wear coloured
owls' feathers in their caps, &c. (See _Strahlenburg_, 4to., p. 434.) The
Dacotas also wear owls' feathers. (See Long's _Expedition to Rocky
Mountains_, vol. i. p. 161.) The Usbeck Tartar chiefs wore (perhaps _do_
wear) plumes of herons' feathers in their turbans; and the herons' plume of
the Ottoman sultan is only a remnant of the costume in which their
ancestors descended from Central Asia.