Just found a beautifully illustrated history of the shuttlecock on the Badminton Association of Thailand’s website.

It’s a bit of an epic, starting in 7th Century China, via Japan, India, Native America and Europe, finally finishing off in 19th Century Colonial India.  I think it says that  a lot of the material was unearthed by a Swiss researcher looking into the early history of football (it seems that shuttlecocks used to be kicked around in many ancient cultures).

However it’s all in Thai so I’m only getting the gist of it, thanks to Google translate.  But the pictures are fantastic!