FEATHER CLOAKS AND CAPES. 55 



many friends abroad who have photographed or made sketches in color of specimens I 

 have been unable personally to examine, or have put me in communication witli 

 owners of specimens not in public museums. 



It may seem strange that articles so highh' valued should have so little history 

 connedled with them. To most of us it would add greatl}' to the interest which must 

 ever attach to these beautiful examples of patient and long-continued work by a primi- 

 tive people, if we knew what chief first ordered the constru6liou, how long the hunters 

 colle6led, how many years the deft fingers of the high chiefesses plaited the precious 

 feathers into the network, what rejoicings at the completion of the long task, in what 

 battle it first was worn, and then the changing ownership when murder, fraud, or theft 

 transferred the garment; or when, in rarer cases, the owner gave the rich gift to a well- 

 loved friend; or, dying, left the aliuula to his heirs. But the native meles and kaaos, 

 while attesting the antiquity of the manufaAure, are not explicit enough to permit the 

 identification of any one specimen; as to the pattern and size, "aole i oleloia ma na kaao 

 kahiko o ko o nei poe kanaka — it is not told in the ancient legends of this people." 



Imagination and arithmetic are not usual \'oke-fellows, but one can count the 

 number of feathers to the square inch and multiplv by the area of the cloak, then 

 divide by the average number of the feathers from eacli bird: imagination must then 

 compute the time taken to ensnare a bird and the farther time to attach the feathers 

 to the cloak. There are those who are amused with such calculations, and they have 

 stated that in the case of the great nianio cloak of Kamehameha ( the first in the follow- 

 ing list), if paid for at the rate of wages ruling at the end of this nineteenth century, 

 a million dollars would hardly pay the bills for the work done by the makers of that 

 cloak at the beginning of the eighteenth centurv- I have not repeated their figuring 

 and I cannot adopt the result as my own, but imagination nuiv be trusted when it tells 

 us that the time was great and the labor enormous before the predecessors of Kameha- 

 meha could display this cloak on their broad shoiilders. I do not care to reduce the 

 result of so much good work to mere dollars and cents. In the march of time and 

 civilization they have become to most men mere curiosities, while to a few they are 

 precious documents telling most honorable stories of a time and civilization long past. 



As curiosities, the market for Hawaiian feather work shows curious flu(5luations. 

 I have been asked $10,000 for a cloak of no extraordinarv beaut v or condition: the 

 Hawaiian Government purchased a larger and finer one at auction for $1200: and 

 another of the same size was bought in London for $125. A small cape, from its per- 

 fection of workmanship and complete preservation, I have valued at $600. It is safe to 

 say that the prices asked for the few specimens now in private hands are prejoosterous. 



