Note 505 — Chapter VIII · THE SWORD IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND IN MODERN AFRICA.
Reading edition
The Somal have retained three other notable peculiarities of ancient Egypt; the wig (worn by the old Nilotes); the Uts () or wooden head-stool acting pillow, which further north was a half-cylinder of alabaster finely carved; and the ostrich-feather head-gear The latter was a symbol of Truth among the old Egyptians, because, says Hor Apollo, the wing-feathers are of equal length. The Romans adopted it as a military decoration. ‘Your courage has not yet given your helmet wherewithal to shade your face from the burning sun,’ say the Kurds, who add to the crest a new feather for every foe slain in fight. The Somal, after victory or murder, stick the white variety in the mop-head. We still use the phrase ‘a feather in his cap.’ The ‘Prince of Wales’ feather’ is an Egyptian ideograph of Truth. Mr. Gerald Massey seems to think that Wilkinson’s ‘Thmei’ (II. chap. viii.) is ‘only a backward rendering of the Greek “Themis”‘; that the feathers are ‘Shu’ (), and that the goddess is ‘Ma’ (), or ‘Mati.’ But surely the root of Themis would be in ‘Ta-Ma,’ the Goddess (of Truth)?
