Feather Wands
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Feb 1891
name: label: Collector
content: Mr. James Mooney
label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Feather Wands: Used in the Eagle or Feather dance, which is equivalent to the Pipe Dance of the prairie tribes & the old Calumet dance of the Algonquian tribes. The wands are still called pipes by the prairie tribes and are undoubtedly evolved from an original calumet trimmed with feathers. Six wands are borne in the dance by as many men, each one of whom carries a rattle in his right hand & a wand in his left, the wand being waved about in time with the dance songs. Each wand is made of a single straight stick about 2 1/2' long, ornamented with eagle feathers, which are fixt in the center like a fan or are set at right angles to the stick. In the latter case seven feathers are used,emblematic of the seven gentes of the tribe. The Eagle dance is performed only in winter & there is a great deal of ceremony in connection with the killing of the eagle and the care of the feathers, which are "fed" or rubbed with blood for some days before the dance. Since the war the dance is practically extinct. As eagles are now difficult to procure in the mountains, the feathers and buckskin used in this case were procured from the National Museum." - James Mooney Notes."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 20 May 2025
label: Specimen Count
content: 5
place: label: Place
content: Not Given, Eastern Cherokee Reservation, North Carolina, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Cherokee
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 024012
label: USNM Number
content: E135180-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Dance Wand