FABLE AND FOLKLORE 19 



(mainly red) of particular birds in the insignia of chiefs, 

 and in religious ceremonials; and he comments as 

 follows : 



In the Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga groups the very special mats 

 of the chiefs were edged with the much-prized red feathers 

 usually obtained with great difficulty from Taverni Island. 

 . . . In Tahiti the fan was associated with feathers in a pe- 

 culiar idea of sacredness, and feathers given out by the priests 

 at the temple at the time of the "Pa'e-atua" ceremony were taken 

 home by the worshippers and tied on to special fans. These 

 beautiful feathers of the Pacific were, of course, prized by an 

 artistic people for their colors alone, but there seems to have 

 been something more than that, something particularly con- 

 nected with a divine royalty. In Hawaii the kahili, the sceptre 

 of the king, was surmounted with special feathers. The royal 

 cloaks (as in Peru) and the helmets had feathers thickly sewn 

 on them; the para-kura, or sacred coronet of Tangier was made 

 of red feathers; and the Pa'e-atua ceremony that I have just 

 written of consisted of the unwrapping of the images of the 

 gods, exposing them to the sun, oiling them, and then wrapping 

 them once more in feathers — fresh feathers, brought by the 

 worshippers, and given in exchange for the old ones, which 

 were taken away as prized relics to be fastened to the sacred 

 fans. 



Can it be that the feathers represent divine birds, symbolic 

 of the "Sky People" ? We know that many birds were peculiarly 

 sacred (the tropic bird of Fiji might be mentioned among 

 others), and the messages of the gods were said to have been 

 at first transmitted by the birds, until the priests were taught 

 to do so in the squeaky voices — possibly imitative of bird-cries — 

 they adopted. 



Such deifications of birds took place elsewhere than 

 in Fiji and Egypt. Charles de Kay has written a learned 

 yet readable book 18 devoted to expounding the worship 

 of birds in ancient Europe, and their gradual mergence 

 into deities of human likeness. He calls attention to re- 

 mains in early European lore indicating a very extensive 

 connection of birds with gods, pointing to a worship of 



