Festival of Birds

From A Wheel of Time Wiki

Festival of Birds is celebrated on the eighteenth day of Taisham.

A holiday in which men, women, and children wear feathered masks that are shaped into a type of bird (such as an owl, eagle, hawk, etc). Men and women also wear feathered costumes and feather-sewn clothes or coats. Usually wealth takes a factor in how elaborate one's mask is and how revealing their costumes are. Poorer folk usually had a few feathers in their hair, which sufficed, while the more wealthy had elaborate masks and costumes decked with feathers that revealed more skin.

Tumblers, jugglers, and musicians wearing feather sewn clothes play at every street corner throughout the day time.

This holiday is celebrated in Ebou Dar.

[edit] Parallels

A probable parallel to this in the real world is the Carnival of Venice in which it is custom for many of the inhabitants of the city don masks and dress in costume. Although not related to birds in any way, Ebou Dar is also a major port riddled with canals and its people are close to those of the Mediterranean in real life.