The painting and dyeing of feathers for good luck and protection is a common practice among the Shandia.
Most often you will see this tradition alive and well with children, who will come together and paint silly, colorful faces with wide, bulging eyes on the backs of each other’s wings. While seemingly innocent and all in good fun, this practice is a cultural holdover from their Blue Sea years, where the land predators were a much more active threat than what they are on Skypiea. It operates on the same principle as wearing a mask on the back of the head in areas where tigers are known to hunt. A fun creative outlet that fosters social skills and also acts as predator deterrent.
The same mimicry is used by warriors, only the faces are painted on the front of the wings, and are often intimidating depictions of the predators native to Jaya (mainly snakes and insects), with some adoption of Skypiean predators (wolves and foxes). The same bulging eyes are present, but the faces themselves are no longer goofy. They are made to frighten people more than animals, after all. Colors are also carefully selected to contrast with their plumage as harshly as possible, always bright and vivid and terribly distracting. The more psychedelic, generally the better. Weapons are sometimes doused with poisonous, hallucinogenic concoctions to worsen this terrorizing effect, but that depends heavily on how much preparation goes into an attack.
The only colors that are barred from general use are the pairing of purples and greens (southbird/directional bird colors), which are reserved for wedding ceremonies and are to be worn only by the spouses to be. This does not bar purples and greens from being used independently from each other, though. This rule applies to tattoos and bodypaint as well.
Each family has a favored color, and upon coming of age, one will have their wings dyed with it, and a secondary color of their choice painted atop the dye in desired patterns to signify their sense of self within the familial whole. For example: Kalgara’s line favors a specific hue of red, so whenever his descendants come of age, their feathers are dyed red and painted over with a secondary color of choice.
