In reply to Mr. Gatty's question, I beg to state that the Indian wears an eagle's feather for every enemy he has slain. I have seen a boy of fifteen thus decorated, and was assured that it had been lawfully won.
The feather is usually stuck into the hinder part of the turban, or head-dress, and either projects straight out, or hangs down the back. This is exactly the fashion in which the Chinese wear the peacock's feather; and it also is a mark of distinction for warriors, a military institution similar to our knighthood, or, perhaps, what knighthood once was. (See De Guignes and Barrow, &c.) I think M‘Kenzie speaks of the eagle's feather, but cannot quote just now. According to Elphinstone, the "Caufirs of Caubul" (Siah-posh?) stick a long feather in their turbans for every Mussulman they have slain.
The similarity of style in wearing their feathers, and, above all, the coincidence of both being the reward of merit, induces a belief that in times long gone by a relationship may have existed between the Chinese and the American; a belief that is strengthened by other and more curious testimony than even this.
The head-dress, or coronet of upright feathers, to which Mr. Gatty seems to allude, I have never heard of, as associated with warlike deeds. The coronet of feathers, moreover, does not appear to have been peculiar to America. In the Athenæum for 1844 is given the representation of a naval engagement, in which one party of the combatants "wear head-dresses of feathers, such as are described in ancient Hindu records, and such as the Indian Caciques wore when America was discovered by Columbus," &c. (p. 172.). Moreover, "the Lycians had caps adorned with crests, stuck round with feathers," &c. (Meyrick's Ancient Armour, &c., vol. i. p. xviii.) We may suppose this to have resembled the coiffure of the Mexican and other North American tribes.
Mr. Rankin says the Peruvian Incas wore, as a distinction, two plumes on the front of the head, similar to those represented in the portraits of Tamerlane. (See Conquest by the Mogols, &c., p. 175.) I have seen, among the Wyandots of Sandusky, heads which one might suppose had been the originals of the portraits given in his plate: turban made of gaudy-coloured silk, with two short thick feathers stuck upright in front; the one red, the other white tipped with blue, the great desideratum being to have them of different colours, as strongly contrasted as possible.
The Kalmucs, when they celebrate any great festival, always wear coloured owls' feathers in their caps, &c. (See Strahlenburg, 4to., p. 434.) The Dacotas also wear owls' feathers. (See Long's Expedition to Rocky Mountains, vol. i. p. 161.) The Usbeck Tartar chiefs wore (perhaps do wear) plumes of herons' feathers in their turbans; and the herons' plume of the Ottoman sultan is only a remnant of the costume in which their ancestors descended from Central Asia.
A. C. M.
Exeter.