Feather cloak

Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena in her cloak.

—Robert Dampier, 1825

Feather cape^[a]

—Display at Keauhou, Hawaii

Elaborate feather cloaks called ʻahu ʻula^[2] were created by early Hawaiians, and usually reserved for the use of high chiefs and aliʻi (royalty).^[3]

The scarlet honeycreeper ʻiʻiwi (Vestiaria coccinea) was the main source of red feathers.^[2][4][5] Yellow feathers were collected in small amounts each time from the mostly black ʻōʻō (Moho spp.) or the mamo (Drepanis pacifica).^[5][2][8]

Another strictly regal item was the kāhili, a symbolic "staff of state" or standard, consisting of pole with plumage attached to the top of it.^{[11][3][5][12]} The Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena in her portrait (cf. fig. right) is depicted holding a kāhili while wearing a feather cloak.^[13] She would typically wear a feather cloak with a feather coronet and she would match these with a pair of pāʻū ('skirts'^[14])^[15] which ordinarily would be barkcloth skirt,^[16] however, she also had a magnificent yellow feather skirt made for her, which featured in her funerary services.^{[15][17][18][b]}

Other famous examples include:

• Kamehameha's feather cloak - made entirely of the golden-yellow feather of the mamo, inherited by Kamehameha I. King Kalākaua displayed this artefact to emphasize his own legitimate authority.^[19][20]
• Kiwalao's feather cloak - King Kīwalaʻō's cloak, captured by half-brother Kamehameha I who slew him in 1782. It symbolized leadership and was worn by chieftains during times of war.^[21]
• Liloa's kāʻei - sash of King Līloa of the island of Hawaii^[22]

A mythical enemy-incinerating kapa (barkcloth) cape, retold as a feather skirt in one telling, occurs in Hawaiian mythology. In the tradition regarding the hero ʻAukelenuiaʻīkū,^[c] the hero's grandmother Moʻoinanea who is matriarch of the divine lizards (moʻo akua, or simply moʻo) gives him her severed tail, which transforms into a cape (or kapa lehu, i.e. tapa) that turns enemies into ashes, and sends him off on a quest to woo his destined wife, Nāmaka. Nāmaka (who is predicted to attack him when he visits) will be immune to the cape's powers. She is also a granddaughter or descendant of the lizard, and has been given the lizard's battle pāʻū (skirt) and kāhili (feathered staff), also conferred with power to destroy enemy into ashes.^[23] In one retelling, Moʻoinanea (Ka-moʻo-inanea) gives her grandson ʻAukele her "feather skirt" and kāhili which "by shaking.. can reduce his enemies to ashes".^[24][25]

A commentator has argued that the feather garment of Nāhiʻenaʻena was regarded as imbued with the apotropaic "powers of a woman's genitals", reminiscent of the mythic pāʻū which Hiʻiaka was given by Pele.^[27]

It has been noted there is a pan-Polynesian culture of valuing the use of feathers in garments, especially of red colour, and there had even existed ancient trade in feathers. However, while various apparel using feather were widespread across Polynesia, but feather capes, other than Hawaiʻi, were restricted to New Zealand.^[28]

The Māori feather cloak or kahu huruhuru are known for their rectangular-shaped examples.^[d][29][30] The most prized were the red feathers which in Māori culture signified chiefly rank,^[31][29] and were taken from the kaka parrot to make the kahu kura which literally means 'red cape'.^[29][e]

The feather garment continues to be utilized as symbolic of rank or respect.^[35][36]

The feather cloak or cape was traditional to the coastal Tupi people, notably the Tupinambá. The cape was called guará-abucu^[37] (var. gûaráabuku^[38]) Tupi–Guarani, so called from the red plumage of guará (Eudocimus ruber, scarlet ibis) and not only did it have a hood at the top,^[39] but it was meant to cover the body to simulate becoming a bird,^[40] and even included a buttocks piece called enduaps.^[37] These feather capes were worn by Tupian shamans or pajé (var. paîé) during rituals, and clearly held religious or sacred meaning.^[41][40] The cape was also worn in battle,^[42] but it has been clarified that the warrior as well as his victim were deliberately dressed as birds as executioners and the offering in ritual sacrifices.^[40]

A bird-hamr (pl. hamir) or feather cloak that enable the wearers to take the form of, or become, birds are widespread in Germanic mythology and legend. The goddess Freyja was known for her "feathered or falcon cloak" (fjaðrhamr, valshamr), which could be borrowed by others to use, and the jötunn Þjazi may have had something similar, referred to as an arnarhamr (eagle-shape or coat).^[43][45]

The term hamr has the dual meaning of "skin" or "shape",^[46] and in this context, fjaðrhamr has been translated variously as "feather-skin",^[47][48] "feather-fell",^[49] "feather-cloak",^[50] "feather coat",^[51] "feather-dress",^[52] "coat of feathers",^[53] or form, shape or guise.^{[54][55][56][f][g]}

The topic is often discussed in the broader sense of "ability to fly", inclusive of Óðinn's ability to transform into bird shape, and Wayland's^[h] flying contraption.^[43] This wider categorization may be necessary, since in the case of Óðinn (and Suttungr) resorting to the arnarhamr ("eagle cloak"), while some have taken this to mean literal use of a garment,^[60][61] it has become commonplace to take it as metaphoric, and construe it to mean "changed into eagle-shape"^[65] perhaps by magic.^[68] Also, Völundr's "wing" is not a "feather cloak" per se, but only likened to it (cf. § Wayland).

In Norse mythology, goddesses Freyja (as aforementioned) and Frigg each own a feather cloak that imparts the ability of flight.^[56][59]

Freyja is not attested as using the cloak herself,^[70] however she lent her fjaðrhamr ("feather cloak") to Loki so he could fly to Jötunheimr after Þórr's hammer went missing in Þrymskviða,^[71] and to rescue Iðunn from the jötunn Þjazi in Skáldskaparmál who had abducted the goddess while in an arnarhamr ("eagle shape").^[45][54][74] The latter episode is also attested in the poem Haustlöng, where Freyja's garment is referred to as hauks flugbjalfa "hawk's flying-fur",^[75] or "hawk's flight-skin"^[76][77] and the jötunn employs a gemlishamr "cloak/shape of eagle".^[78]

Loki also uses Frigg's feather cloak to journey to Geirröðargarða ("Geirröðr's courts"^[80] in Jötunheimr^[82]), referred to here as a valshamr ("falcon-feathered cloak").^[85]

Óðinn is described as being able to change his shape into that of animals, as attested in the Ynglinga saga.^[86][87] Furthermore, in the story of the Mead of Poetry from Skáldskaparmál,^[88][62] although Óðinn changes into a arnarhamr), this is interpreted as assuming an "eagle-form" or "shape", especially by later scholars;^[65] meanwhile, scholar Ruggerini argues Óðinn can use shape-shifting magic, in contrast to the jötunn Suttung, who must put on his (arnarhamr)) in order to pursue him.^[68][i]

In the Völsunga saga, the wife of King Rerir is unable to conceive a child and so the couple prays to Odin and Frigg for help. Hearing this, Frigg then sends one of her maids (Hljóð, possibly a valkyrja) wearing a krákuhamr (crow-cloak) to the king with a magic apple that, when eaten, made the queen pregnant with her son Völsung.^[89][90][91]

There were also the three swan-maidens, also described as valkyrjur, and owned sets of "swan's garments" or "swan cloaks" (álptarhamir; sing.:álptarhamr), and these gave the wearer the form of a swan.^[92][93] And the maidens were wedded to Wayland the Smith and his brothers, according to the prose prologue to Völundarkviða ("Lay of Wayland").^[97]

This bears similarity to the account of the eight valkyrjur with hamir in Helreið Brynhildar.^[98][99][93]

The master smith Wayland (Old Norse: Völundr) uses some sort of device to fly away and escape from King Niðhad after he is hamstrung, as described in the Eddic lay Völundarkviða.^[95][101] The lay has Völundr saying he has regained his "webbed feet" which soldiers had taken away from him, and with it he is able to soar into air. This is explained as a circumlocution for him recovering a magical artifact (perhaps a ring), which allows him to transform into a swan or such waterfowl with webbed feet.^[95][101] An alternate interpretation is that the text here should not be construed as "feet" but "wings" ("feather coat or artificial wings"^[102]), which gave him ability to fly away.^{[104][105][j]}

The second "wing" scenario coincides with the version of the story given in Þiðreks saga, where Völundr's brother Egill shot birds and collected plumage for him, providing him with the raw material for crafting a set of wings,^[95] and this latter story is corroborated also corroborated on depictions on the panels of the 8th-century whale-bone Franks Casket.^{[95][103][107]}

In the Þiðreks saga Wayland (here Old Norse: Velent)'s device is referred to as "wings" or "a wing" (Old Norse: flygill, a term borrowed from the German Flügel^[108]) but is described as resembling a fjaðrhamr, supposedly flayed from a griffin, or vulture, or an ostrich.^{[k][l][m][113][112][114]} Modern commentators suggest that the Low German source^[117] originally just meant "wings", but the Norse translators took license to interpret it as being just like a "feather cloak".^[109][107] In the saga version, Velent not only requested his brother Egill to obtain the plumage material^[118] (as aforementioned) but also asks Egill to wear the wings first to perform a test flight.^[112][107] Afterwards Velent himself escapes with the wings, and instructs Egil to shoot him, but aiming for his blood sack prop to fake his death.^[112]

As already noted, hamr could mean either a physical "skin" or the abstract "shape",^[46] and though on first blush, Freyja seems to have a (literally) a "feather cloak" she could lend to others,^[43] Larrington for instance glosses the feather cloak not as a 'skin' but an 'attribute' of the goddess which gives her ability to fly.^[58] Vincent Samson explains the hamr as the physical aspect taken on by a mobile (or transmigrating) soul^[n] when undergoing animal transformation, noting that François-Xavier Dillmann defines hamr as "external form of the soul".^[o][119]

The Breton lai of Bisclavret was translated in the Old Norse Strengleikar, the notion of "shape of animal" was rendered as hamr.^[119] Another instance of such figure of speech usage occurs in the Old Norse telling of the British king's flying contraption, cf. below:

The legendary king Bladud of the Celtic Britons fashioned himself a pair of wings (Latin: alia) to fly with, according to the original account in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.^[122] This winged contraption is rendered as a "fjaðrhamr" in the Old Norse translation Breta sögur,^[123][53] here meant strictly as a flying suit, not a means of transformation into bird.^[53]

Bladud's wings are also rendered into Middle English as "Middle English: feðer-home", cognate with Old Norse: fjaðrhamr, in Layamon's Brut version of Geoffrey's History.^[124][125]

There are bird-people depicted on the Oseberg tapestry fragments, which may be some personage or deity wearing winged cloaks, but it is difficult to identify the figures or even ascertain gender.^[126]

King Bladud of Britain created artificial wings to enable flight according to Galfridian sources, conceived of as "feather skin" in Old Norse and Middle English versions (as already discussed above in § Bladud's wings ).

In Ireland, the elite class of poets known as the filid wore a feathered cloak, the tuigen, according to Sanas Cormaic ("Cormac's glossary").^[127] Although the term may merey refer to a "precious" sort of toga, as Cormac glosses in Latin, it can also signify tuige 'covering ' tuige 'of birds', and goes on to describe the composition of this garment in minute detail.^{[128][129][p]}

Cormac's glossary goes on to describe the tuigen thus: "for it is of skins (croiccenn, dat. chroicnib^[131]) of birds white and many-coloured that the poets' toga is made from their girdle downwards, and of [male] mallards' necks and of their crests from the girdle upwards to their neck".^{[128][129][134]}

Although John O'Donovan recognized an attestation to the cloak in the Lebor na Cert ("Book of Rights"), where verses by Benén mac Sescnéin are quoted, this may be an artefact of interpretive translation. In O'Donovan's rendition, the verse reads that the rights of the Kings of Cashel rested with the chief poet of Ireland, together with his bird cloak (Taiḋean) where Taeidhean (normalized as taiden) is construed to be synonymous with tugen.^{[q][138][133]} However, taíden is glossed as "Band, troop, company"^[139] and Myles Dillon renders the same line ("Fogébthar i taeib na taídean") as "The answer will always be found at the assemblies" with no mention of the bird cloak.^[140]

The tuigen is also described in the Immacallam in dá Thuarad ("The Colloquy of the two Sages").^[141] According to the narrative, in Ulster, Néde son of Adna gains the ollam’s position ("ollaveship") of his father, supplanting the newly appointed Ferchertne, then goes on to sit on the ollam’s chair and wears the ollam’s robe (Old Irish: tuignech), which were of three colors,^[143][145] i.e., a band of bright bird's feathers in the middle, speckling of findruine (electrum) metal on the bottom, and "golden colour on the upper half".^[146] The tuigen is also mentioned in passing when Ferchertne speaks poetically and identifies his usurper as the young Néde, undeceived by the fake beard of grass.^[147][149]

The tuigen is also referred to (albeit allegorically) in the 17th elegy written for Eochaidh Ó hÉoghusa.^[141]

In the Old Norwegian work Konungs skuggsjá ("King's Mirror"), we can read a description of lunatics called "gelts"^[150] sprouting feathers, in the chapter dealing with Irish marvels (XI):

There is still another matter, that about the men who are called “gelts,” which must seem wonderful. Men appear to become gelts in this way: when hostile forces meet and are drawn up in two lines and both set up a terrifying battle-cry, it happens that timid and youthful men who have never been in the host before are sometimes seized with such fear and terror that they lose their wits and run away from the rest into the forest, where they seek food like beasts and shun the meeting of men like wild animals. It is also told that if these people live in the woods for twenty winters in this way, feathers will grow upon their bodies as on birds; these serve to protect them from frost and cold, but they have no large feathers to use in flight as birds have. But so great is their fleetness said to be that it is not possible for other men or even for greyhounds to come near them; for those men can dash up into a tree almost as swiftly as apes or squirrels.

―tr. by Laurence M. Larson^[151] (original text in Old Norse/Old Norwegian^[152])

Regarding the above description of the "Gelts" sprouting feathers, it refers to the Irish word geilt meaning a "lunatic" induced into madness by fear from battle such as described in "King's Mirror" above.^[150] The word geilt also occurs as a nickname for "Suibne Geilt"^[150] or "Mad Sweeney" who transforms into a feathered form according to the medieval narrative Buile Shuibhne.

This concept is adapted to the Greek mythology ; Mercury, god of medicine, wears a "bird covering" or "feather mantle" rather than talaria (usually conceived of as feathered slippers) in medieval Irish versions of the Greco-Roman classics, such as the Aeneid.^[153]

• Hagoromo, the feathered stole of Japanese-Buddhist mythology.