Feathers ... will any old feather do ?

[Phil Rees]

Over the years, I, like many other members of this forum, have fletched arrows with a variety of feathers from different birds and from all parts of the bird.  I have to say, I haven't noticed any dramatic difference in the performance of the arrows when fletched with  left or right wing feathers, tail feathers, or plume feathers.
So my question is, would our forefathers just make use of the feathers that were available to them at the time, or do you think they would have been using specific feathers from selective birds as we do today?

[Pappy]

I would guess they would use any ones the had,I am just blessed with Turkey/goose wing feathers so that is what I use.
   Pappy

[recurve shooter]

i got to start turkey hunting. no gooses down here. lots of crows though.

[scattershot]

I have seen arrows fletched with leaves and tufts of grass, or not fletched at all, so I'm sure just about anything would work and has been used in the past. Durability is another matter, though.

[wolfsire]

So my question is, would our forefathers just make use of the feathers that were available to them at the time, or do you think they would have been using specific feathers from selective birds as we do today?

Both.  Tradition and availablity woudl have dictated choice.  It being part of their culture, they would have understood the properties of feathers.  Where available the stronger and larger feathers of the water foul and birds of prey probably would have been favored.  Where not, they might conserve by using 2 instead of 3, or come up with alternatives like using 6 or so whole small feathers.

[Hillbilly]

Almost any good sized feather will work, but some may work well in one fletching style and not another. I think that in the past, raptor feathers like hawk and eagle were often used not only for their physical properties, but also for good medicine-feathers from a predatory bird would just seem to impart a little more killing power to an arrow than feathers from a chicken or some such.

[Tom Leemans]

I would say that the real test would be when they get wet. Other than that, if it flies good, use it!

[JackCrafty]

In the accounts I've read about ancient fletching, there was usually a preference for a certain type of feather for a certain type of arrow.  War arrows always had the strongest and most durable feathers...for obvious reasons.  Also, the ancient fletcher was more superstitious than his modern counterpart and probably used the feathers that were considered "good luck" in preference to all others.

That said, in a time when you plucked your own birds before you ate them, there were plenty of feathers at hand.  Domesticated birds probably provided most of the fletching....unless there was a trade network in place for raptor feathers.

[JW_Halverson]

There is a Sioux arrow at the Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron Nebraska that is fletched with what I believe is a goose wing feather, then a yellow shafted flicker wing feather, and the third feather is the bright blue secondary wing feather from a mallard duck.  Yup, they were very careful with what feathers they used, only bird feathers would do, never any horsefeathers.  That arrow looks to be a hunting arrow with the steel trade point on it and I do not believe it was a ceremonial arrow since it was not much decorated otherwise and it is pretty utilitarian looking other than the whatcha-got-stew of fletching.

I'd like to do a survey of the fletchings in the Grayson Collection in Missouri and break it down to species and then further down into primary wing feathers vs secondary vs tail feathers.