Chapter 3

The women are the chief, if not the only, manufacturers; the men judge that if they performed that office, it would exceedingly depreciate them. * * * In the winter season, the women gather buffalo's hair, a sort of coarse, brown, curled wool; and having spun it as fine as they can, and properly doubled it, they put small beads of different colours upon the yarn, as they work it, the figures they work in those small webs, are generally uniform, but sometimes they diversify them on both sides. The Choktah weave shot-pouches which have raised work inside and outside. They likewise make turkey feather blankets with the long feathers of the neck and breast of that large fowl--they twist the inner end of the feathers very fast into a strong double thread of hemp, or the inner bark of the mulberry tree, of the size and strength of coarse twine, as the fibres are sufficiently fine, and they work it in manner of fine netting. As the feathers are long and glittering, this sort of blankets is not only very warm, but pleasing to the eye.[30]

The extent and importance of the art among the Gulf tribes are indicated by a number of early observers. The Knight of Elvas speaks of the use of blankets by the Indians, 83 degrees west longitude, and 32 degrees north latitude, or near the central portion of Georgia:

These are like shawls, some of them are made from the inner barks of trees, and others from a grass resembling nettle, which, by threading out, becomes like flax. The women use them for covering, wearing one about the body from the waist downward, and another over the shoulder, with the right arm left free, after the manner of the gypsies: the men wear but one, which they carry over their shoulders in the same way, the loins being covered with a bragueiro of deer-skin, after the fashion of the woolen breech-cloth that was once the custom of Spain. The skins are well dressed, the color being given to them that is wished, and in such perfection, that, when of vermilion, they look like very fine red broadcloth, and when black, the sort in use for shoes, they are of the purest. The same hues are given to blankets.[31]

At Cutifachiqui similar fabrics were observed:

In the barbacoas were large quantities of clothing, shawls of thread, made from the barks of trees and others of feathers, white gray, vermilion and yellow, rich and proper for winter.[32]

The frequent mention of fabrics used by the Indians for shawls, mantles, etc., makes it plain that such were in very general use when the town of Pacaha was captured, and the Spaniards clothed themselves with mantles, cassocks, and gowns made from these native garments. Everywhere woven shawls were a principal feature of the propitiatory gifts of the natives to the Spaniards.

The extent of this manufacture of hempen garments by the Indians of the lower Mississippi is well indicated in the account of the adventures of the expedition on the western side of the Mississippi at Aminoga. The Spaniards undertook the construction of brigantines by means of which they hoped to descend the Mississippi and to pass along the gulf coast to Mexico. A demand was made upon the natives for shawls to be used in the manufacture of sails, and great numbers were brought. Native hemp and the ravelings of shawls were used for calking the boats.[33] What a novel sight must have been this first European fleet on the great river, consisting of five brigantines impelled by sails of native manufacture!

It is worthy of note that in this region (of the lower Mississippi) the Spaniards saw shawls of cotton, brought, it was said, from the west--probably the Pueblo country, as they were accompanied by objects that from the description may have been ornaments of turquois.[34]

The following is from Du Pratz:

Many of the women wear cloaks of the bark of the mulberry-tree, or of the feathers of swans, turkies, or India ducks. The bark they take from young mulberry shoots that rise from the roots of trees that have been cut down; after it is dried in the sun they beat it to make all the woody part fall off, and they give the threads that remain a second beating, after which they bleach them by exposing them to the dew. When they are well whitened they spin them about the coarseness of pack-thread, and weave them in the following manner: they plant two stakes in the ground about a yard and a half asunder, and having stretched a cord from the one to the other, they fasten their threads of bark double to this cord, and then interweave them in a curious manner into a cloak of about a yard square with a wrought border round the edges. * * * The girls at the age of eight or ten put on a little petticoat, which is a kind of fringe made of threads of mulberry bark.[35]

This is illustrated farther on.

The manner of weaving in the middle and upper Mississippi country is described by Hunter, who, speaking of the Osage Indians and their neighbors, says:

The hair of the buffalo and other animals is sometimes manufactured into blankets; the hair is first twisted by hand, and wound into balls. The warp is then laid of a length to answer the size of the intended blanket, crossed by three small smooth rods alternately beneath the threads, and secured at each end to stronger rods supported on forks, at a short distance above the ground. Thus prepared, the woof is filled in, thread by thread, and pressed closely together, by means of a long flattened wooden needle. When the weaving is finished, the ends of the warp and woof are tied into knots, and the blanket is ready for use. In the same manner they construct mats from flags and rushes, on which, particularly in warm weather, they sleep and sit.[36]

Fabrics of various kinds were employed in burial, although not generally made for that purpose. The wrappings of dead bodies were often very elaborate, and the consignment of these to tombs and graves where the conditions were favorable to preservation has kept them for long periods in a most perfect state. By exhumation we have obtained most of our information on this subject. Our knowledge is, however, greatly increased by descriptions of such burial customs as were witnessed in early times. Extracts already given refer to the use of fabrics in mortuary customs. Many others could be cited but the following seems sufficient:

After the dead person has lain a day and a night in one of their hurdles of canes, commonly in some out house made for that purpose, those that officiate about the funeral go into the town, and the first young men they meet withal, that have blankets or match coats on, whom they think fit for their turn, they strip them from their backs, who suffer them so to do without any resistance. In these they wrap the dead bodies, and cover them with two or three mats which the Indians make of rushes or cane; and, last of all, they have a long web of woven reeds or hollow canes, which is the coffin of the Indians, and is brought round several times and tied fast at both ends, which, indeed, looks very decent and well. Then the corps is brought out of the house into the orchard of peach trees, where another hurdle is made to receive it, about which comes all the relations and nation that the dead person belonged to, besides several from other nations in alliance with them; all which sit down on the ground upon mats spread there for that purpose.[37]

NETS.

The manufacture and use of nets by natives in various parts of the country are recorded by early writers, some of whom have already been quoted. Speaking of the Iroquois De la Potherie says:

The old men and those who can not or do not wish to go to war or the chase, make nets and are fishers. This is a plebian trade among them. Their nets are made of thread of nettles or of white wood, the bark of which they make into thread by means of lye which renders it strong and pliable.[38]

In another place the same author says:

The Sauteurs, who are beyond the Missisakis, take their name from a Saut (waterfall) which flows from Lake Superior into Lake Huron by a great fall whose rapids are extremely violent. These people are very skillful in fishery by which they obtain white fish as large as salmons. They cross all these terrible rapids into which they cast a net like a sack, a little more than half an ell in width by one in depth attached to a forked stick about 15 feet long.[39]

A novel use of nets is recorded by this author as follows:

For taking pigeons in summer in nets, they make a broad path in the woods and attach to two trees, one on each side, a large net made in the shape of a sack well opened.[40]

Du Pratz, speaking of the fishing nets of the Louisiana Indians, states that they "are meshed like ours and made of lime-tree bark; the large fish are shot with arrows."[41]

FEATHER WORK.

Feather work was one of the most remarkable arts of the natives of Mexico and other southern countries at the period of the conquest. The feathers were sometimes woven in with the woof and sometimes applied to a network base after the fashion of embroidery. Rarely, it may be imagined, were either spun or unspun fabrics woven of feathers alone. Very pleasing specimens of ancient Peruvian feather work are recovered from graves at Ancon and elsewhere, and the method of inserting the feathers is illustrated in the Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology.[42] In few instances has such work been recovered from mounds or burial places, but there can be no doubt that the mound-building tribes were experts in this art. Frequent mention is made of the feather work of the natives by the earliest explorers of the Mississippi valley, and the character of the work may be gathered from the extracts already given and from those which follow.

John Smith, speaking of the feather work of the Virginia Indians, says:

We haue seene some vse mantels made of Turky feathers, so prettily wrought and woven with threads that nothing could be discerned but the feathers.[43]

Lawson mentions a "doctor" of the Santee nation who "was warmly and neatly clad with a match coat, made of turkies feathers, which makes a pretty show, seeming as if it was a garment of the deepest silk shag."[44]

In another place the same author says:

Their feather match coats are very pretty, especially some of them, which are made extraordinary charming, containing several pretty figures wrought in feathers, making them seem like a fine flower silk shag; and when new and fresh, they become a bed very well, instead of a quilt. Some of another sort are made of hair, raccoon, bever, or squirrel skins, which are very warm. Others again are made of the greenpart of the skin of a mallard's head, which they sew perfectly well together, their thread being either the sinews of a deer divided very small, or silk grass. When these are finished, they look very finely, though they must needs be very troublesome to make.[45]

Du Pratz thus describes the art in Louisiana:

If the women know how to do this kind of work they make mantles either of feathers or woven of the bark of the mulberry tree. We will describe their method of doing this. The feather mantles are made on a frame similar to that on which the peruke makers work hair; they spread the feathers in the same manner and fasten them on old fish nets or old mantles of mulberry bark. They are placed, spread in this manner, one over the other and on both sides; for this purpose small turkey feathers are used; women who have feathers of swans or India ducks, which are white, make these feather mantles for women of high rank.[46]

Butel-Dumont describes feather work of the natives of Louisiana briefly as follows:

They [the women] also, without a spinning wheel or distaff, spin the hair or wool of cattle of which they make garters and ribands; and with the thread which they obtain from lime-tree bark, they make a species of mantle, which they cover with the finest swan's feathers fastened one by one to the material. A long task indeed, but they do not count this trouble and time when it concerns their satisfaction.[47]

EMBROIDERY.

The use of beads, quills, and other articles to beautify the surfaces of fabrics and skins was as common, no doubt, with the ancient as with the modern native inhabitants of the Mississippi valley. In discoursing on the dress of native women of Louisiana Butel-Dumont says that the young girls wear--

* * * a sort of network attached to the waist and terminating in a point, * * * both sides of which are ornamented with ribbons of thread made from lime-tree fiber, also made into network. From the waist to the knees hang several cords of the same thread, to the ends of which are attached claws of birds of prey, such as eaglets, crows, etc., so that when the girls walk these make a rattling noise which is highly pleasing to them. This kind of ornament does not illy resemble those nets which we use to cover our horses to protect them from flies.[48]

From Du Pratz we have the following:

The women make also designs in embroidery with the skin of the porcupine; they remove for this purpose the skin of this animal, which is white and black; they split it very fine to use as embroidery thread, dye a part of the white skin a red color, another part yellow, and a third part is left white; they usually work on black skin, and dye the black a reddish brown; but if they work on bark, the black [threads] remain the same. Their designs are very similar to some of those found in Gothic architecture; they are composed of straight lines which form right angles at their conjunction, which is commonly called the corner of a square. They also work similar designs on mantles and coverings which they make with the bark of the mulberry tree.[49]

John Smith testifies to the same practices in Virginia as shown in the following lines:

For their apparell, they are sometimes covered with the skinnes of wilde beasts, which in Winter are dressed with the hayre, but in Sommer without. The better sort use large mantels of Deare skins, not much differing in fashion from the Irish mantels. Some imbrodered with white beads, some with Copper, other painted after their manner. * * * We haue seene some use mantels made of Turky feathers, so prettily wrought and woven with threads that nothing could be discerned but the feathers.[50]

[26] Travels in North America, Peter Kalm. English translation, London, 1771, vol. II, pp. 131, 132.

[27] Ibid., pp. 148-149.

[28] Hist. de l'Amérique, Sept., vol. III, p. 34.

[29] Hist. Virginia. Richmond, 1819, pp. 132-133.

[30] History of the American Indians. London, 1775, pp. 422, 423.

[31] Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida as told by a Knight of Elvas. Translated by Buckingham Smith. New York, 1866, p. 52.

[32] Ibid., p. 63.

[33] Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida as told by a Knight of Elvas. Translated by Buckingham Smith. New York, 1866, p. 160-70.

[34] Ibid., p. 164.

[35] Hist. Louisiana, op. cit., vol. II, p. 23.

[36] Memoirs of a captive among the Indians of North America, John D. Hunter. London, 1823, pp. 289-290.

[37] Hist. of Carolina, John Lawson. London, 1714; reprint, Raleigh, N. C., 1800, pp. 293-294.

[38] Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale, Bacqueville de la Potherie, vol. III, pp. 33-34.

[39] Ibid., vol. II, pp. 60-61.

[40] Ibid., vol. II, p. 80.

[41] Histoire de la Louisiane, vol. II, pp. 179-180.

[42] The Textile Art, W. H. Holmes, p. 231.

[43] Hist. Virginia, John Smith. Richmond, 1819, vol. I, p. 130.

[44] Hist. Carolina, John Lawson. Raleigh, 1860, p. 37.

[45] Ibid., pp. 311-312.

[46] Hist. de la Louisiane, vol. II, pp. 191-192.

[47] Memoire sur la Louisiane. Paris, 1753, vol. I, pp. 154-155.

[48] Ibid., vol, I, pp. 138-139.

[49] Historie de la Louisiane, vol. II, pp. 184-185.

[50] Hist. Virginia. Richmond, 1819, vol. I, pp. 129-130.

FOSSIL FABRICS.

MODES OF PRESERVATION.

Contenting myself with the preceding references to the practice of the arts of spinning and weaving in the various regions of the country, I pass on to an examination of the archeologic material which includes traces or remnants of the weaver's work from all sections of the country. As already mentioned, there are a number of ways in which textile articles or data relating to them may be preserved in such manner as to permit examination and study.

Through charring by the use of fire in burial rites, and by contact with copper or preservative salts in burial caves, numerous pieces of cloth and parts of costumes have come into our possession. One of the most fertile sources of information has but recently been made available. The ancient potter employed woven fabrics in handling, finishing, and decorating pottery. From mounds, graves, and dwelling sites, all over the country, vases and sherds are found covered with impressions of these fabrics, and so well preserved that by taking casts in clay or wax entirely satisfactory restorations are made. Something may be learned from the recovery of implements of spinning and weaving, but up to this time the only relics secured are a few rather rude spindle whorls.

I shall present in the following paragraphs such portions of the available data as seem calculated to illustrate briefly and clearly the nature of the ancient art.

FABRICS FROM CAVES AND SHELTERS.

At an early date in the history of the country reports began to find their way into print relating to the discovery of mortuary fabrics in caverns and shelters. Extracts from some of these publications may be given.

From the writing of John Haywood historian of Tennessee, we have the following:

In the spring of the year 1811, was found in a copperas cave in Warren county, in West Tennessee, about 15 miles southwest from Sparta, and 20 from McMinnville, the bodies of two human beings, which had been covered by the dirt or ore from which copperas was made. One of these persons was a male, the other a female. They were interred in baskets, made of cane, curiously wrought, and evidencing great mechanic skill. They were both dislocated at the hip joint, and were placed erect in the baskets, with a covering made of cane to fit the baskets in which they were placed. The flesh of these persons was entire and undecayed, of a brown dryish colour, produced by time, the flesh having adhered closely to the bones and sinews. Around the female, next her body, was placed a well dressed deer skin. Next to this was placed a rug, very curiously wrought, of the bark of a tree and feathers. The bark seemed to have been formed of small strands well twisted. Around each of these strands, feathers were rolled, and the whole woven into a cloth of firm texture, after the manner of our common coarse fabrics. This rug was about three feet wide, and between six and seven feet in length. The whole of the ligaments thus framed of bark were completely covered with feathers, forming a body of about one eighth of an inch in thickness, the feathers extending about one quarter of an inch in length from the strand to which they were confined. The appearance was highly diversified by green, blue, yellow and black, presenting different shades of colour when reflected upon by the light in different positions. The next covering was an undressed deer skin, around which was rolled, in good order, a plain shroud manufactured after the same order as the one ornamented with feathers. This article resembled very much in its texture the bags generally used for the purpose of holding coffee exported from Havanna to the United States. The female had in her hand a fan formed of the tail feathers of a turkey. The points of these feathers were curiously bound by a buckskin string, well dressed, and were thus closely bound for about one inch from the points. About three inches from the point they were again bound, by another deer skin string, in such a manner that the fan might be closed and expanded at pleasure. * * *

The cave in which they were found, abounded in nitre, copperas, alum, and salts. The whole of this covering, with the baskets, was perfectly sound, without any marks of decay.[51]

There was also a scoop net made of bark thread; a mockasin made of the like materials; a mat of the same materials, enveloping human bones, were found in saltpetre dirt, six feet below the surface. The net and other things mouldered on being exposed to the sun.[52]

In the year 1815 a remarkably interesting set of mortuary fabrics was recovered from a saltpeter cave near Glasgow, Kentucky. A letter from Samuel L. Mitchell, published by the American Antiquarian Society, contains the following description of the condition of the human remains and of the nature of its coverings:

The outer envelope of the body is a deer skin, probably dried in the usual way, and perhaps softened before its application, by rubbing. The next covering is a deer skin, whose hair had been cut away by a sharp instrument, resembling a hatter's knife. The remnant of the hair, and the gashes in the skin, nearly resemble the sheared pelt of beaver. The next wrapper of cloth is made of twine doubled and twisted. But the thread does not appear to have been formed by the wheel, nor the web by the loom. The warp and filling seemed to have been crossed and knotted by an operation like that of the fabricks of the northwest coast, and of the Sandwich islands. * * * The innermost tegument is a mantle of cloth like the preceding; but furnished with large brown feathers, arranged and fastened with great art, so as to be capable of guarding the living wearer from wet and cold. The plumage is distinct and entire, and the whole bears a near similitude to the feathery cloaks now worn by the nations of the northwestern coast of America.[53]

The Bureau of Ethnology had the good fortune to secure recently a number of representative pieces of burial fabrics of the classes mentioned in the preceding extracts, and somewhat detailed descriptions of these will sufficiently illustrate the art as practiced by the early inhabitants of the middle portions of the country.

The relics which have come into the possession of the Bureau were obtained in 1885 by Mr. A. J. McGill from a rock shelter on "Clifty" or Cliff Creek, Morgan county, Tennessee. Mr. J. W. Emmert, through whom they were procured, reports that they were found in a grave 3½ feet below the surface and in earth strongly charged with niter and perhaps other preservative salts. The more pliable cloths, together with skeins of vegetal fiber, a dog's skull, some bone tools, and portions of human bones and hair, were rolled up in a large split-cane mat. The grave was situated about as shown in the accompanying section (figure 4). A shelf some 20 feet in width, with depressed floor, occurs about midway between the creek bed and the slightly overhanging ledge above, the whole height being estimated at 300 feet.