Antiquity of Tarring and Feathering
Tarring and feathering, it seems, is an European invention. One of Richard Cœur de Leon’s ordinances for seamen was, “that if any man were taken with theft and pickery, and thereof convicted, he should have his head polled, and hot pitch poured upon his pate, and upon that the feathers of some pillow or cushion shaken aloft, that he might thereby be known as a thief, and at the next arrival of the ships to any land be put forth of the company to seek his adventures without all hope of return unto his fellows.”—Holinshed.