I am just back from a stay in South Africa; besides going on several safaris, I attended and evening event at a beautiful palatial structure built in the 1800’s called Feather Market Centre in Port Elizabeth. It served as an auction room and natural extension of the town’s marketplace during the ostrich feather boom lasting until World War I. The opulent building was officially opened by Sir Hercules Robinson to coincide with the opening of the South African Kimberly Exhibition. Port Elizabeth is and was a strategic and important port in the Eastern Cape.
Curious as ever, I had to delve into the stories surrounding something called a Feather Market and boy, did I learn a thing or two. We have to go back to 1852. At the Duke of Wellington’s funeral, the enormous hearse was pulled by twelve black horses, each sporting a dramatic plume of prime black ostrich feathers. The feathers harked back to traditional medieval baronial funerals and their inclusion in the spectacular parade, which was witnessed by 1.5 million people, was hugely influential on Victorian funereal customs.
The fashion for ostrich feathers ultimately dripping down through the classes, becoming an essential element of ‘respectable’ Victorian funerals. French Queen Marie Antoinette placed an ostrich and peacock feather in her hair one evening, and then after the King admired and praised the plumes, created a trend throughout the court. In the 1860s the French Court began to wear ostrich feathers on hats, as trim on dresses, as jackets and boas. The feathers could be dyed any color of the rainbow and added exoticism and luxury to any outfit. Naturally where Paris went, the world followed and soon the demand for ostrich feathers outstripped supply, lending them yet further cache and to much higher prices.
Ostrich farming started during the 1860s in the arid regions of the Karoo and Eastern Cape in South Africa. Due to the value of ostrich feathers some canny colonial farmers at the Cape in South Africa saw an opportunity. If the ostrich could be domesticated and farmed they would have a ready supply of feathers which could be plucked from the bird without harming it and regrow anew. These hardy birds were well-adapted to the dry and open inland areas of these regions. In 1865 there were only 80 tame ostriches in South Africa, but numbers increased rapidly, particularly when the use of egg incubators became popular. Ten years late in 1875, South Africa had more than 32,000 ostriches.
For decades South Africa was the sole provider of ostriches in the world, with strict laws preventing the export of live birds. However, there is a story as to why…..when they became a global commodity South Africa wanted only the best as the price for top quality feathers made farmers millionaires overnight. So, the government wanted to strengthen its grip on the market. And sent a secret mission to obtain the near-mythic Barbary ostrich “by any means necessary” — Russell Thornton’s mission, on behalf of the government, was to clandestinely make his way into French Sudan, locate the ostriches, and secure a flock for South Africa. Thornton and company set out for West Africa and began their trek in the British colony of Nigeria. They chartered a steamboat from Forcados for a 500-mile voyage up the Niger River to Baro. From there they hopped a train to Kano, a major trans-Saharan trading city. In the bazaars there, Thornton spent six weeks of negotiations and came away with nothing. He and his team went back to Nigeria and put out an appeal and bounty for the North African Barbaries to bring him Ostriches. Thus, he returned with nearly 140 specimens. Thornton was hailed as a hero upon return, not only for enriching the breeding herds, but securing the feather monopoly of South Africa.
After WWI, the feather industry collapsed totally and suffered a slow-down until the end of WWII, the millionaires lost it all almost overnight. But you must remember ostriches around when humans emerged, so we have a long history with the massive birds. Africans had long hunted ostriches for meat and leather. So, in reality this was just a small blip of about 75 years in their history.
Ostriches are the largest and heaviest birds in the world. Given their weight, they are flightless and cannot fly into the sky. Instead, ostriches are great runners able to reach speeds of up to 43 miles per hour. One stride can be 10 to 16 feet long. They have long, strong legs with two clawed toes, allowing them to reach these high speeds. The North African ostrich, red-necked ostrich, or Barbary ostrich is the nominate subspecies of the common ostrich from West and North Africa. It has the largest average size among the subspecies of ostriches, making it the largest living bird.
Ostriches are a wacky-looking creature roaming the bush. An ostrich has a long neck, prominent eyes and sweeping eyelashes. Ostriches have the largest eye of any land animal. An ostrich’s eye is nearly 2 inches across. Their long neck and excellent vision help them see great distances, allowing them to keep an eye out for predators.
Ostriches have unique feathers that are loose, soft, and smooth, giving them a “shaggy” look. Adult male ostriches are black with white wings and tail feathers, and wears pink stocking on their legs, adult females have brownish-gray feathers. Interestingly the male sits on the nest during the night as his black feather obscure the nest, and the female takes day duty due to her brown coloring to blend into the land.
The dominant hen mates with the territorial male, and they share the tasks of incubating the eggs and caring for the chicks. The territorial male is polygamous and may mate with other females. The other females then lay their eggs in the same nest as the dominant hen’s eggs. The nest is a shallow depression scratched in the dirt by the male. The dominant hen makes sure her eggs are closest to the center, and therefore most likely to hatch successfully. A communal nest allows more eggs to successfully hatch overall for the flock. A female ostrich lays 7 to 10 eggs at a time. Ostrich eggs are the largest eggs, weighing about 3 pounds, measuring 6 inches in length and measuring 5 inches across. One Ostrich egg contains the amount of protein as 24 chicken eggs. Only dinosaurs produced larger eggs. Another closely related is their feet are called "didacty" meaning "two-toed," the only bird with this type of feet with claws. It is true that they are closely related to dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period as they evolved from a group of birds that survived the extinction event that ended the "Age of Dinosaur." The truth is that they have survived a whole host of extinction events, having walked this earth for over 66 million years. So, the ostrich feather craze was but a blink of those long lashes.
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