Whence
Feather cape (ʻahu ʻula)
Fashion

Where does Feather cape (ʻahu ʻula) come from?

The ʻahu ʻula, the feather cape of Hawaiian chiefs, comes from the Hawaiian Islands. Covered in tiny red and yellow feathers tied onto fine netting, these capes and cloaks were worn by the aliʻi, the chiefly class, as signs of the highest rank.

Feathers on a net of olonā

The base of a cape is a netting made from olonā, a native plant of the nettle family. Feather-workers gathered small bundles of feathers and tied them onto the mesh, close together, until the whole surface was covered; a single cloak needed hundreds of thousands of feathers. Size showed rank: full-length cloaks were allowed only to the highest chiefs, while lesser chiefs wore shorter capes.

A gift to Captain Cook

On 26 January 1779 the British explorer James Cook was received at Kealakekua Bay by Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the high chief of Hawaiʻi Island. As a sign of goodwill, the chief placed the feather helmet and cloak he was wearing on Cook's head and shoulders. Cook's ship carried them away, and for more than two centuries they passed between collectors and museums. In 2016 they went back to Hawaiʻi on loan, and in 2020 they were returned to Hawaiʻi for good.

Why people think of the Amazon

Brilliant red and yellow featherwork may bring to mind the parrots of tropical rainforests, but the prized feathers came from native Hawaiian birds. Red came mostly from the scarlet ʻiʻiwi, a honeycreeper. Yellow came from the mostly black ʻōʻō and mamo, which carry small yellow patches; Kamehameha I ordered them caught, plucked and released. Even so, the Hawaii mamo died out around the end of the 19th century, and every ʻōʻō species was extinct by 1987, probably from disease.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · blog.tepapa.govt.nz ↗

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