CnHapter VI 
FEATHERS AND FEATHERWORK 
Attachment to string: Of larger-sized feathers (79); of smaller-sized feathers (80). 
Tying of feather: To feather (81); to stick, etc. (82). 
Employment of feather on arrow (83). 
Cultivation of artificially colored feathers (84). 
79. Comparatively little featherwork is now to pe met with in the 
area under consideration (sec. 476). La Condamine says: The 
Mayna, Omagua, and divers other Indians make some works in 
feathers, but they neither come up to the art nor the neatness of 
those of the Americans (LCo, 86). It will be sufficient here to note 
the various methods employed in the attachment of feathers to strings, 
sticks, and arrows. 
The method of fixing a feather on a string will depend on the size 
of the feather. Thus, in the tippets (sec. 538) of the Makusi, Wapi- 
shana, and Waiwai, in certain hat crowns (eagle and fowl feather) 
of the Waiwai, and numbers of other ornaments worn by Indians 
in the extreme south of British Guiana, wherever the larger-sized 
feathers are employed, the procedure is as follows (fig. 28): Hold 
the feather with its underside downward between thumb and 
index of left hand (A) in such a manner that the midrib rests on 
the ball of the thumb and the quill falls over the wrist. With a 
very sharp knife make a cut into the midrib at a spot as near its distal 
extremity as possible. The cut is not made directly downward at 
right angles to the surface, but at an angle on the slope toward you, 
and only to a depth that will admit of no damage being done to the 
adjacent barbs. With the little piece of shaving pressed between 
the knife blade and the right thumb, the upper surface of the midrib 
is gradually yet firmly torn back until a spot is reached about 2 
inches from its junction with the quill, when it is cut off (B). Again 
fixing the feather in a similar position, catch hold of its right half, 
with the right thumb and index, about one-half inch from its tip, 
and, pulling gently, drag off the barbs with their attached sheath to 
a level with the cut surface of the midrib (C). Turn the feather 
over and drag off in similar fashion the corresponding set of barbs 
on the other half of the feather (D). Now divide the midrib at the 
spot where the two sets of barbs have been freed, and smooth them 
out of the curl into which the late manipulation has inclined them (E). 
The quill is next cut just below its proximal extremity on its under- 
side with a comparatively long incision passing downward, toward 
you (F), and a second short cut to meet it, passing upward, from 
122 
