When I wrote about the visit from Angel, I explained the reasons why Native Americans have such reverence for eagles. Now I would like to write about eagle feathers in a prison.
Eagle feathers are sought for various uses: to pray with in the sweat lodge, to make dance regalia (bustles and fans), for honor ceremonies, and to have in your cell to use as you pray.
In the old days, if someone wanted eagle feathers, they would dig a pit in which to hide, put branches over the top of it, and put a dead rabbit on top. When an eagle would land to eat the rabbit, the man in the pit would reach up and grab the eagle by its feet.
Getting eagle feathers is much simpler now. Men write to the Eagle Repository to apply for feathers (Order Form & Instructions). Depending on what they want, the wait is about 90 days for loose feathers up to 7 years for Golden Eagle feathers. They may only order feathers once while they are in prison. In SD, inmates may only get eagle feathers from the repository. They can’t have someone from home mail feathers to them. If they choose to mail out eagle feathers, that is allowed.
I learned early on that women on their moon time are not allowed to touch eagle feathers, pipes, or medicine bags. It is the belief among the Dakota and Lakota that a woman on her moon time has such great power that her touch can remove the sacred blessing put onto eagle feathers, pipes, or medicine bags.
In my early days as a volunteer, I avoided touching these items. When I took a medicine man around the segregation unit one day to visit inmates, some of them handed him eagle feathers as a gift. He handed them to me to hold. He and the inmates had obviously decided I was too old to be on my moon time so it was okay if I touched sacred items.
What happens after a man has applied for eagle feathers is that he receives a permit. The repository in Colorado mails out eagle feathers on Wednesdays. Before they mail any to the prison, they send an email to confirm the inmate is still at the prison. When the box arrives in the mail room, one of the officers who works there calls me to come to get it immediately. When eagle wings and tails are ordered, there is still meat on them. (Eagle heads and talons are not allowed in the prison.) I then deliver the feathers to the appropriate inmate. I enjoy doing that because they smile like I am giving them a wonderful present.
If they received wings and a tail, they need to remove the bones and meat from the wings and the tail. If the weather is conducive, they are sent to the sweat lodge area to do this and often a more experienced inmate goes with them to help them do the cleaning without breaking the feathers. I often am out there too because they want to use the heavy duty scissors I keep locked in my office for this purpose. Otherwise they use the scissors they can buy which are labeled as pre-school scissors at the store since the end is blunt. It takes much longer using them.
They put the meat and tiny feathers into a plastic bag or wrap them in newspaper. The meat stinks since the eagles going to the repository have ordinarily died from hitting power lines or colliding with a vehicle so they smelled before the repository freezes them. Sometimes the inmates put the meat and tiny feathers into the sweat lodge fire to burn them. Sometimes they give them to me to put in a tree in my backyard.
One time an inmate who had just cleaned an eagle had eagle meat wrapped in newspaper and was walking back to his cell from the sweat lodge. An officer stopped him and demanded the inmate give the package to him so he did. The officer put the package on the desk of the unit manager on a Friday afternoon. When the unit manager returned on Monday morning, the odor in his office was very pungent. The unit manager called my supervisor to send me for the package immediately and to bring along air spray. I went to the rescue. I always keep a couple of plastic grocery bags in my trunk to hold these packages until I get home so my trunk doesn’t pick up the odor.
When an inmate goes to the hole or the hospital or out to court, his feathers are put into a bag or box. I get them and lock them in a storage room behind the chapel and hold them until the inmate returns. If the inmate isn’t positively a Native, I check his records to make sure he is. If he is not a Native, I will not give them back to him since it is illegal under Federal law for a non-enrolled person to possess eagle feathers. They could go to Federal prison for that.
When I questioned one blonde-haired, blue-eyed man about having eagle feathers, he was quite insulted. I called his tribe to confirm he was indeed enrolled. The Natives appreciate that I take the eagle feathers from non-Natives who usually get them from a Native by trading for coffee or some other commissary item.
The officers don’t know what eagle feathers are supposed to look like, so I have received pigeon feathers from the yard and once even a bright blue parakeet feather. Feathers taken from non-Natives and feathers left behind by inmates who leave are given to visiting medicine men when they come to run sweats.
In each wing of an eagle, there is a large bone which can be made into an eagle bone whistle used for ceremonies. Some of the smaller bones can be used to make breast plates to wear at powwows. I have often brought home partially cleaned eagle bones to boil them so the meat on them can be removed and the marrow inside the bones removed. My kitchen doesn’t smell very good when I do this.
There are a few inmates who are experts at identifying eagle feathers. Some of the feathers look similar to goose feathers, but they aren’t greasy like goose feathers since eagles don’t swim. I have, however, seen eagles walking on ice on the Missouri River along open spots in the ice where dead fish have surfaced.
Some prisons only allow an inmate to have one or two feathers so our inmates are very happy they are allowed more.
Mary Montoya
