Eagle feather bunch for NAC staff. Large feather orange from base to roughly half way up feather where barbs become brown. Hot pink smaller feather attched to calamus of larger feather. Pink feather broken and missing tip. Calamus covered in hide thong with fringe extending from base. Fringe twisted for approx. 3 inches from base but untwisted for remainder of length.

Individual feathers would have been used as fans themselves. They would have been used as fans to fan off an individual re entering the church house/service. Fanning an individual off purifies the individual reentering the space. You put cedar on the fire to create smoke, then use the smoke as a purifying agent. All feathers act in the same way. Peyote meetings are ritually pure environments and you have to maintain that pure environment, Feathers and fans are significant in maintaining this ritually pure and symbolic environment. You have to get rid of any external influences coming into that environment. You can also have a ritual activity outside a peyote meeting and fan yourself off.

Tags: feather, fan
People: Southern Plains, Oklahoma
Places: Southern Plains, Oklahoma
Purpose: peyote meeting, personal activity

From interviews with Dr. Garrick Bailey, 2018-2020 University of Tulsa, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology