OCT 21 1899 



HAWAIIAN FEATHER WORK. 



,■:/// /iss(7]' nil ancient Haiuaiiaii Feather decoi'atioi/^ icitli a List of the tuni-e 

 important remains. By Willinni T. BrigllciiTl, A. \I., Director of the 

 Berniee Paitalii Bishop Miiseiiin. 



Thk love of personal decoration appears very early in the history of the 

 liunian race. When the fierce struggle for existence and the pursnit of food and shel- 

 ter allowed time for the consideration of family, the keen hnnters ninst have learned 

 man\' a lesson from the beasts of the field and forest, — not less from the birds of the air, 

 of the processes of Nature which Air. Darwin has called se.vitat selection. That any 

 savage ever rea.sons ont these processes cannot be believed, but the sharp eye trained in 

 daily hunts could not be blind to the patent fact that so many birds have plumage 

 evidently intended for attra'5live decoration, and that it answers this purpose. Savage 

 man at first put on the adornments in which he saw the male of so many birds and beasts 

 was resplendent, and not until many ages after was the woman allowed to appropriate 

 to her own use what in earh- tribal life was the exclusive property of the male. 



The lion's mane, tlie tiger's skin, the eagle's feather were man's earliest adorn- 

 ment, and it is not impri)1xil:)le that woman in humble emulation of her lord made for 

 herself clusters and bands of flowers or fruits, while the dwellers on the ocean shores 

 soon took the sea-shells cast on the sandy beach. 



The warrior of the far North has the eagle and hawk from which to borrow, and 

 the ancient war dress of a Mandan chief was decorated with spoil of these and other 

 birds; but in the warmer regions of the earth, where Nature puts forth all her powers, 

 and birds and insedls vie in coloring with the most brilliant flowers, uncivilized man 

 has wantoned in the prodigalitA- and fashioned for himself a gorgeous decoration taken 

 from the captives of his bow, net, or blow-gun. 



India still, through all the years of her changing civilization, has preserved the 

 traces of early work in bird feathers in the superb piinlcas where the showy feathers of 

 the peacock and pheasant have replaced the smaller and more beautiful feathers of 

 earlier days. The rock-cut temples record on the efHgies of gods and heroes that line 

 the walls or cluster about the columns the use of feather decoration both in civil 

 and martial guise; a tale of very remote times. Eastward through the Siamese penin- 

 sula, northward through China, the use of feather decoration extended, and in the latter 



Memoirs of the Bernice Pavahi IIisiun' MrsEi'M. Vol. I. ( i ) 



