Feather cloak

Feather cloaks have been used by several cultures. It constituted noble and royal attire in § Hawaii and other Polynesian regions. It is a mythical bird-skin object that imparts power of flight upon the Gods in § Germanic mythology and legend, including the § Swan maidens account. In medieval Ireland, the chief poet (filí or ollam) was entitled to wear a feather cloak.

The feather robe or cloak (Chinese: yuyi; Japanese: hagoromo; 羽衣) was considered the clothing of the Immortals (xian; 仙/僊), and features in swan maiden tale types where a tennyo (Japanese: 天女 "heavenly woman") robbed of her clothing or "feather robe" and becomes bound to live on mortal earth. However, the so-called "feather robe" of the Chinese and Japanese celestial woman came to be regarded as silk clothing or scarves around the shoulder in subsequent literature and iconography.

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. While various featherwork apparel were widespread across Polynesia, feather capes were limited to Hawaiʻi and 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]) in 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 attire into an "eagle skin" (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 without the need of such skin, in contrast to the jötunn Suttung, who must put on his "eagle skin" (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 Oðinn 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 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 rather a single "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 merely 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 the term taeidhean (normalized as taiden) is construed to be synonymous with tugen.^{[q][138][133]} However, taíden is glossed as "Band, troop, company"^[139] and in a modern translation 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"), one 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 Greco-Roman 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 classical literature, such as the Aeneid.^[153]

Stories concerning the guhuoniao (姑獲鳥 lit. "wench bird";^[154]) describes the heavenly maiden who by wearing a "feathered garment" can transform into a bird and attempts to snatch away human children, being childless herself. This story is considered to fall somewhat under the purview of the swan-maiden type. It is arguably the oldest example, a version being found in the Xuan zhong ji [zh] and a slight variant in the Soushenji both dating to the 4th century.^[155][156]

In the Chinese Daoist concept of gods and immortals (神仙, shenxian), these immortals wear feather garments or yuyi (羽衣).^[157] The xian also included human-born Daoists who purportedly attained immortality.^[158] These immortals have their antecedents in the myth of "feather-humans" or "winged men" (yuren, 羽人).^[157][159] These "winged spirits" occur in ancient art, such as Han dynasty cast bronzes,^[158] and an example (cf. fig. above) appear to be clothed and possess a pair of wings. ^[160][r] Early literary attestations are rather scant, though the Chu Ci (楚辞) anthology may be cited (poetic work entitled Yuan You) as mentioning the yuren.^[157][159]

These yuren were originally supernatural divinities and strictly non-human, but later conflated or strongly associated with the xian (仙/僊) immortals, which Daoist adepts could aspire to become.^[160][161]

The Book of Han^[s] records that the Emperor Wu of Han allowed the fangshi sorcerer Luan Da^[t] to wear a feathered garment in his presence, interpreted to be the granting of the privilege to publicly appeal the sorcerer's attainment of the winged immortal's power or status.^[161][162] A later commentator of the early Tang dynasty, Yan Shigu clarifies that the winged garment yuyi was made from bird feathers, and signifies the gods and immortals taking flight.^[163]

In the early Tang (or rather Wu Zhou) dynasty, the Empress Wu Zetian commanded her favorite paramour Daoist Zhang Changzong to be dressed up in a mock-up of famed Dao master Wang Ziqiao [ja]. Part of the costume set he wore included a "bird-feathered coat".^[164] The coat was referred to as a ji cui (集翠), that is to say, made from the gathered feathers of the kingfisher (feizui, 翡翠).^[u][165][v]

Regarding the High Tang period Emperor Xuanzong, legend has it that he composed or arranged the Nishang yuyi qu [zh] ("Melody of the Rainbow Skirts, Feathered Coats"). According to the fabulous account (preserved in Taiping Guangji), the Emperor was conveyed to the immortal realm (Lunar Palace) by a xian named Luo Gongyuan [zh]. The "rainbow skirts" and "feathered coats" in the tune's title have been surmised by commentators to refer to the clothing described as worn by the dancing immortal women in this account, namely the "white loose-fitting silk dress".^[167] Hence it is supposed that in the popular image of those times, the celestial "feather coats" were being regarded as silken, more specifically "white glossed silk" garments.^[170]

In modern times, a number of folktales have been collected from all over China that are classed as the swan-maiden type, which are renditions of the Weaver Maiden and the Cowherd legend. These consequently may not strictly have a "feather garment" as the implement in the flying motif. In the tale type, the Weaver Maiden is usually forcibly taken back to her celestial home, and the earthly Cowherd follows after, using various items, including heavenly costumes and girdles, but also oxen or oxhide in many cases.^[171] Although flight using oxhide seems counterintuitive, Wu Xiadon (呉暁東) has devised the theory that the Weaver Girl's primordial form was the silkworm (silkworm-woman [zh]), and the ancient silk-woman or silk-horse myth, a girl after being wrapped in the skin of her favorite horse, metamorphoses into a silkworm.^[173][175] But even disregarding this theory, the Weaver Girl in China is considered (less a divinity of plant fiber weaving) and more a divinity of silk and sericulture, a being who descended from heaven and taught mankind how to raise silkworms.^[176] Namely, the notion that the celestial Weaver Girl raised silkworms in heaven, spun the thread into silk, and wore the woven silk garment is a widely accepted piece of lore.^[177]

Cloth or clothing with the down of the crane woven in were called hechang (鶴氅) or [he]changyi ([鶴]氅衣, lit. "crane down clothing"), and existed as actual pieces of clothing by the Tang Dynasty.^[178] It was standard uniform for courtly guards during Tang and Song, but both men and women civilians wore them also.^[179] A Taoist priest (daoshi) or adept (fangshi) wore these as well.^[180][179] It is also mentioned in the famous novel Dream of the Red Chamber that the ladies Lin Daiyu] and Xue Baochai wore such "crane cloak".^[181]

In Japan, there are also swan maiden type legends about tennyo (天女 "heavenly woman") coming to the earthly world and having her garment, or hagoromo (羽衣) stolen, translated as "feather cloak",^[182] or "feather robe",^[183] etc. The oldest attestation is set at Lake Yogo [ja] in Ōmi Province (now Shiga Prefecture) and was recorded in a fragment of the lost Fudoki of that province (Ōmi no kuni fudoki [ja]).^[184][183]

There is also the well-known folktale of the Tsuru no Ongaeshi (鶴の恩返し, lit. "Crane's Return of a Favor"), where the crane-wife weaves fine cloth out of her own feathers, which might bear some relationship with the heavenly feather cloak.^[185][w]

The miniature boy deity Sukunabikona is described as wearing a garment made of wren's feathers in the Nihon shoki.^{[178][186][x]}

The Nara Period (8th century) Torige Tachi-Onna Byōbu (鳥毛立女屏風) refers to a byōbu or a folding "screen with figures of ladies standing; design worked out with birds ' feathers".^[188] That is to say, almost looks like a monochrome line-painting or biaomiao [zh] piece, but had feathers of the copper pheasant^[z] pasted on them.^[189] In particular, the 2nd panel of 6 depicts a woman^[187] with a peculiar costume said to be a "feather garment", with "petal-shaped lobes overlapping like scales, extending from top to bottom".^[190] This is said to indicate the Japanese court's awareness of the trend in Tang Dynasty China of wearing garments using bird feathers.^[189] Art historian Kazuo Kosugi [ja] goes as far as to say this was an homage or allusion to the Chinese Daoist tradition that divinity and immortals wore yingyi made of bird's feathers.^[191]

The ancient swan maiden type myth does not only occur in the Ōmi fudoki [ja] where the heavenly woman is forcibly married to a man. In different tale found in the Tango fudoki [ja], the heavenly woman is forcibly adopted by an old childless couple.^[183][192] Although only the former text explicitly mentions "feather robe", and the Tango version only says it was the heavenly woman's costume (衣裳, ishō) which was hidden away, it is surmised that the feather garment was meant there as well.^[193]

In The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (written down in the Heian Period?), Princess Kaguya mounts a flying cart and ascends to the "Moon Palace", while the angelic tennin who arrived to escort her also brought for her the hagoromo feather garment as well as the medicine of immortality and agelessness. Due to the flying car, the feather garment here is supposedly not a direct means for her to be able to fly,^[aa][194] and it is guessed to be an article of clothing required by her to become or revert to a genuine celestial being.^[197] It is pointed out that many scholars assume the tennin here to be the dictionary definition Buddhist entities, but the concept of immortality is incongruent with the Buddhist core tenet of transience and rebirth, so the tennin must really be regarded as the borrowing of divinities and immortals (xian; 仙/僊) of Taoism.^[198]

The ancient legend about the Princess Tsuminoe [ja] classed as a hagoromo densetsu ("tradition of the robe of feathers"),^[199] which does not clarify how she flew away as tennnyo in the older version, has a later Heian Period version where she put on a hire, i.e., a scarf (肩巾 or 領巾) and took flight.^[200]

That is to say, the so-called "feather robe" hagoromo came to be commonly depicted as what can only be described as the sheer silk scarf, called "hire (領巾)" in olden times,^[ab][201]

Later in the Muromachi Period, in performances of the Noh play Hagoromo, the dancing actor portraying the heavenly female tennyo wears a supposed hagoromo feather garment. The prop costume is apparently made from whitish thin silk (or sometimes, thicker colorful silk).^[202] Though the theatrical convention serves merely as a hint to what the original hagoromo garment was like,^[202][ac], but since sheer silk has been prized since the ancient Han or earlier, and even unearthed in Japanese Yayoi period sites,^[ad] the hagoromo legend costume may well share origins with the tennnyo images found in Buddhist temples, etc.^[ae] according to scholar Junrō Nunome, professedly speaking out of his textile expertise, being a non-folklorist.^[203]

However, the caveat is that while a dictionary consultation of tennyo (lit. "heavenly woman") typically explains it as a Buddhist female entity, the proper context is that of so-called "heavenly" beings actually refer to deities and immortals (神仙, shenxian) of Taoism who dwell in the xian realm. And this caveat applies even to the case of the Bamboo Cutter's daughter Kaguya, who ascends to the "Moon Palace".^[198] As for the Nara Period work of art using real bird feathers, it has been theorized (by Kosugi) that it alludes to the feather garments of the shenxian, as aforementioned.^[191]

But even in the context of the shenxian garments, later literature dating to the golden age of Tang ascribe the Daoist heavenly immortals wearing spun and softened silk, as in the legendary tale surrounding the "Melody of the Rainbow Gown and the Feathered Robe [zh]" (q.v., § China above).^[af]