Part 2
The Indians, by reason of our supplying them so cheap with every sort of goods, have forgotten the chief part of their ancient mechanical skill, so as not to be well able now, at least for some years, to live independent of us. Formerly, those baskets which the Cheerake made, were so highly esteemed even in South Carolina, the politest of our colonies, for domestic usefulness, beauty, and skilful variety, that a large nest of them cost upwards of a moidore.[8]
That there was much uniformity in the processes and range of products and uses throughout the country is apparent from statements made by numerous writers. Speaking of the Louisiana Indians, Du Pratz says:
The women likewise make a kind of hampers to carry corn, flesh, fish, or any other thing which they want to transport from one place to another; they are round, deeper than broad, and of all sizes. * * * They make baskets with long lids that roll doubly over them, and in these they place their earrings and pendants, their bracelets, garters, their ribbands for their hair, and their vermillion for painting themselves, if they have any, but when they have no vermillion they boil ochre, and paint themselves with that.[9]
It happens that few baskets have been recovered from mounds and graves, but they are occasionally reported as having been discovered in caverns and shelters where conditions were especially favorable to their preservation. Such specimens may as reasonably be attributed to the mound-building as to the other Indians. The following statement is from John Haywood:
On the south side of Cumberland river, about 22 miles above Cairo, * * * is a cave * * *. In this room, near about the center, were found sitting in baskets made of cane, three human bodies; the flesh entire, but a little shrivelled, and not much so. The bodies were those of a man, a female and a small child. The complexion of all was very fair, and white, without any intermixture of the copper colour. Their eyes were blue; their hair auburn, and fine. The teeth were very white, their stature was delicate, about the size of the whites of the present day. The man was wrapped in 14 dressed deer skins. The 14 deer skins were wrapped in what those present called blankets. They were made of bark, like those found in the cave in White county. The form of the baskets which inclosed them, was pyramidal, being larger at the bottom, and declining to the top. The heads of the skeletons, from the neck, were above the summits of the blankets.[10]
SIEVES AND STRAINERS.
It is apparent that baskets of open construction were employed as sieves in pre-Columbian as well as in post-Columbian times. Almost any basket could be utilized on occasion for separating fine from coarse particles of food or other pulverulent substances, but special forms were sometimes made for the purpose, having varying degrees of refinement to suit the material to be separated.
Bartram mentions the use of a sieve by the Georgia Indians in straining a "cooling sort of jelly" called conti, made by pounding certain roots in a mortar and adding water.
Butel-Dumont describes the sieves and winnowing fans of the Louisiana Indians. The Indian women, he says, make very fine sieves--
With the skin which they take off of the canes; they also make some with larger holes, which serve as bolters, and still others without holes, to be used as winnowing fans. * * * They also make baskets very neatly fashioned, cradles for holding maize; and with the tail feathers of turkeys, which they have much skill in arranging, they make fans not only for their own use, but which even our French women do not disdain to use.[11]
Le Page Du Pratz says that "for sifting the flour of their maiz, and for other uses, the natives make sieves of various finenesses of the splits of cane;"[12] and a similar use by the Indians of Virginia is recorded by John Smith:
They use a small basket for their Temmes, then pound againe the great, and so separating by dashing their hand in the basket, receive the flowr in a platter of wood scraped to that forme with burning and shels.[13]
From Hakluyt we have the following:
Their old wheat they firste steepe a night in hot water, and in the morning pounding yt in a morter, they use a small baskett for the boulter or searser, and when they have syfted fourth the finest, they pound againe the great, and so separating yt by dashing their hand in the baskett, receave the flower in a platter of wood, which, blending with water, etc.[14]
CRADLES.
That cradles of textile construction were used by the mound-builders may be taken for granted. The following is from Du Pratz, who is speaking of the work of the inhabitants of the lower Mississippi:
This cradle is about two feet and a half long, nine inches broad. It is skillfully made of straight canes of the length desired for the cradle, and at the end they are cut in half and doubled under to form the foot. The whole is only half a foot high. This cradle is very light, weighing only two pounds. * * * The infant being rocked lengthwise, its head is not shaken as are those who are rocked from side to side, as in France. * * * The cradle is rocked by means of two ends of canes, which make two rollers.[15]
SHIELDS.
Woven targets or shields would seem to be rather novel objects, but such are mentioned by John Smith, who used those belonging to friendly Indians in an encounter on the Chesapeake:
Here the Massawomek Targets stood vs in good stead, for vpon Mosco's words we had set them about the forepart of our Boat like a forecastle, from whence we securely beat the Salvages from off the plaine without any hurt. * * * Arming ourselues with these light Targets (which are made of little small sticks woven betwixt strings of their hempe and silke grasse, as is our cloth, but so firmly that no arrow can possibly pierce them).[16]
[6] Hist. of Carolina, etc., John Lawson. London, 1714, pp. 307, 308.
[7] History of the American Indians. London, 1775, p. 424.
[8] Ibid., p. 424.
[9] Hist. Louisiana. English translation, London, 1763, vol. II, pp. 227-228.
[10] Nat. and Abor. Hist. of Tenn., John Haywood. Nashville, 1823, pp. 191-192.
[11] Op. cit., vol. I, p. 154.
[12] Op. cit., vol. II, p. 226.
[13] Hist. Virginia, John Smith. Richmond, 1819, p. 127.
[14] Hist. of Travaile into Virginia: Win. Strachey, Hakluyt Society, Lond., 1844, vol. VI, p. 73.
[15] Hist. Louisiana, vol. II, pp. 310, 311.
[16] Op. cit., p. 185.
MATTING.
No class of articles of textile nature were more universally employed by the aborigines than mats of split cane, rushes, and reeds, and our information, derived from literature and from such remnants of the articles themselves as have been recovered from graves and caves, is quite full and satisfactory. Mats are not so varied in form and character as are baskets, but their uses were greatly diversified; they served for carpeting, seats, hangings, coverings, and wrappings, and they were extensively employed in permanent house construction, and for temporary or movable shelters. A few brief extracts will serve to indicate their use in various classes of construction by the tribes first encountered by the whites.
Hariot says that the houses of the Virginia Indians--
Are made of small poles made fast at the tops in rounde forme after the maner as is vsed in many arbories in our gardens of England, in most townes couered with barkes, and in some with artificiall mattes made of long rushes; from the tops of the houses downe to the ground.[17]
It would appear from a study of the numerous illustrations of houses given by this author that the mats so often referred to were identical in construction with those still in use among the tribes of the upper Mississippi and the far west. The rushes are laid close together side by side and bound together at long intervals by cords intertwined across. In _e_, plate I, is reproduced a small portion of a mat from Hariot's engraving of the dead-house of the Virginia Indians, which shows this method of construction.
The modern use of mats of this class in house construction is known by an example which I have seen represented in a small photograph, taken about the year 1868, and representing a Chippewa village, situated somewhere in the upper Missouri valley, probably not far from Sioux City, Iowa.
Mats were used not only in and about the dwellings of the aborigines, but it was a common practice to carry them from place to place to sleep on, or for use as seats or carpeting in meetings or councils of ceremonious nature. The latter use is illustrated in a number of the early accounts of the natives. Figure 2, copied from Lafitau, serves to indicate the common practice.
The omnipresent sweat-house of the aborigines is thus described by Smith:
Sometimes they are troubled with dropsies, swellings, aches, and such like diseases; for cure whereof they build a Stone in the forme of a Doue-house with mats, so close that a few coales therein covered with a pot, will make the patient sweat extreamely.[18]
Bartram, speaking of the Seminoles, states that the wide steps leading up to the canopied platform of the council house are "covered with carpets or mats, curiously woven of split canes dyed of various colours."[19]
The use of mats in the mound country in very early times is described by Joutel as follows:
Their moveables are some bullocks' hides and goat skins well cured, some mats close wove, wherewith they adorn their huts, and some earthen vessels which they are very skilful at making, and wherein they boil their flesh or roots, or sagamisé, which, as has been said, is their pottage. They have also some small baskets made of canes, serving to put in their fruit and other provisions. Their beds are made of canes, raised 2 or 3 feet above the ground, handsomely fitted with mats and bullocks' hides, or goat skins well cured, which serve them for feather beds, or quilts and blankets; and those beds are parted one from another by mats hung up.[20]
The mats so much used for beds and carpets and for the covering of shelters, houses, etc., were probably made of pliable materials such as rushes. De la Potherie illustrates their use as beds,[21] one end of the mat being rolled up for a pillow as shown in figure 3.
The sizes of mats were greatly varied; the smallest were sufficient for seating only a single person, but the largest were many yards in length, the width being restricted to a few feet by the conditions of construction.
Mats were woven in two or more styles. Where the strands or parts were uniform in size and rigidity they were simply interlaced, but when one strong or rigid series was to be kept in place by a pliable series, the latter were twisted about the former at the intersections as in ordinary twined weaving. The heavy series of strands or parts were held together side by side by the intertwined strands placed far apart, a common practice yet among native mat-makers. Much variety of character and appearance was given to the fabric by varying the order of the strands in intersection. It was a common practice to interweave strands of different size, shape, or color, thus producing borders and patterns of no little beauty. Du Pratz thus mentions the use of dyes by the Louisiana Indians: "The women sometimes add to this furniture of the bed mats woven of cane, dyed of 3 colours, which colours in the weaving are formed into various figures."[22] This is well illustrated in the mat from a rock shelter in Tennessee, later to be described, and the Indians of the east and north practiced the same art.
Speaking of the ceremony of smoking the calumet among the Iroquois, De la Potherie says:
The ceremony is held in a large cabin in winter and in summer in an open field. The place being chosen, it is surrounded with branches to shade the company. In the center is spread a large mat of canes dyed in various colors, which serves as a carpet.[23]
Frequent mention is made of the use of mats in burial. Two brief extracts will serve to illustrate this use. Butel-Dumont makes the following statement regarding tribes of the lower Mississippi:
The Paskagoulas and Billoxis do not inter their chief when he dies, but they dry the corpse with fire and smoke in such a way that it becomes a mere skeleton. After it is reduced to this state they carry it to the temple (for they have one as well as the Natchez) and put it in the place of its predecessor, which they take from the spot it occupied and place it with the bodies of the other chiefs at the bottom of the temple, where they are arranged one after the other, standing upright like statues. As for the newly deceased, he is exposed at the entrance of the temple on a sort of altar or table made of cane and covered with a fine mat very neatly worked in red and yellow squares with the skin of the canes.[24]
Brackenridge[25] says that a few years ago, in the state of Tennessee, "Two human bodies were found in a copperas cave in a surprising state of preservation. They were first wrapped up in a kind of blanket, supposed to have been manufactured of the lint of nettles, afterwards with dressed skins, and then a mat of nearly 60 yards in length."
[17] A Brief and True account of the New Found Land of Virginia, Thomas Hariot, p. 24.
[18] A Brief and True account of the New Found Land of Virginia, Thomas Hariot, p. 137.
[19] William Bartram's Travels, etc. London, 1792, p. 302.
[20] Joutel, in B. F. French's Historical Collections of Louisiana. New York, 1846, p. 149.
[21] Hist. de l'Amér. Sept., Bacqueville de la Potherie. Paris, 1722, vol. III. Plate opposite p. 24.
[22] Hist. Louisiana, Du Pratz. English translation. London, 1763, vol. II, p. 227.
[23] Hist. de l'Amér. Sept., vol. II, p. 17.
[24] Mem. sur la Louisiane, vol. I, pp. 240-241.
[25] Views of Louisiana, H. M. Brackenridge, 1817, p. 178.
PLIABLE FABRICS.
DEVELOPMENT OF SPINNING AND WEAVING.
The use of simple strands or parts in textile art precedes the use of spun threads, but the one use leads very naturally up to the other. In employing rushes, stems, grasses, etc., the smaller strands were doubled to secure uniformity of size, and when a number of parts were used they were combined into one by twisting or plaiting. In time the advantage in strength and pliability of twisted strands came to be recognized, and this led to the general utilization of fibrous substances, and finally to the manufacture of suitable fibers by manipulating the bark of trees and plants. Spinning was probably not devised until the weaver's art had made considerable advance, but its invention opened a new and broad field and led to the development of a magnificent industry. Semi-rigid fabrics served for a wide range of uses, as already described, but soft and pliable cloths for personal use and ornament were made possible only by the introduction of spinning.
On the arrival of the whites the native art was well advanced; thread, cordage, and even ropes of considerable weight were made with a degree of uniformity and refinement that surprises us. The finest threads with which I am acquainted are perhaps not as fine as our no. 10 ordinary spool cotton thread, but we are not justified in assuming that more refined work was not done. What we have is only that which happened to be preserved through burial with the dead or by impression on the plastic surface of clay used in the arts.
The materials employed for spinning by the aborigines were greatly diversified. Through historical as well as through purely archeologic sources we learn that both vegetal and animal filaments and fibers were freely used. The inner bark of the mulberry was a favorite material, but other fibrous barks were utilized. Wild hemp, nettles, grasses, and other like growths furnished much of the finer fibers. The hackling was accomplished by means of the simplest devices, such as pounding with hammers or sticks. The hair and sinews of animals were frequently spun into threads and woven into cloth.
A few citations from early authors will indicate sufficiently for present purposes the methods of spinning and weaving employed by tribes which, if not in all cases mound-builders, were at least the neighbors and relatives of the mound-building Indians.
CLOTHS.
The character of the woven articles is to a great extent indicated in the extracts which follow. It evidently was not customary to weave "piece" goods, but rather to make separate units of costumes, furnishing, etc., for use without cutting, fitting, and sewing. Each piece was practically complete when it came from the frame or loom. For clothing and personal use there were mantles, shawls, and cloaks to be worn over one or both shoulders or about the body as described by Hariot, Smith, the Knight of Elvas, Du Pratz, and others; there were skirts fastened about the waist and drawn with an inserted cord or looped over a belt; there were belts, sashes, garters, shot pouches, and bags. For household use there were hangings, covers for various articles, and bedclothing; there were nets for fishing and cords for angling. Some of these extracts describe the whole group of activities included in the practice of the art as well as the use of the products. I have considered it preferable to quote as a unit all that is said on the subject by each author, giving cross reference, when necessary, in discussing particular topics under other headings.
Weaving among the Indians of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and the northeast is described by Kalm, De la Potherie, and others. The following extracts are from Kalm, and will serve to indicate the status of the art over a wide area:
_Apocynum cannabinum_ was by the Swedes called Hemp of the Indians; and grew plentifully in old corn grounds, in woods on hills, and in high glades. The Swedes had given it the name of Indian hemp, because the Indians formerly, and even now, apply it to the same purposes as the Europeans do hemp; for the stalk may be divided into filaments, and is easily prepared. When the Indians were yet settled among the Swedes, in Pensylvania and New Jersey, they made ropes of this apocynum, which the Swedes bought, and employed them as bridles, and for nets. These ropes were stronger, and kept longer in water, than such as were made of common hemp. The Swedes commonly got fourteen yards of these ropes for one piece of bread. Many of the Europeans still buy such ropes, because they last so well. The Indians likewise make several other stuffs of their hemp. On my journey through the country of the Iroquese, I saw the women employed in manufacturing this hemp. They made use neither of spinning wheels nor distaffs, but rolled the filaments upon their bare thighs, and made thread and strings of them, which they dyed red, yellow, black, etc., and afterwards worked them into stuffs, with a great deal of ingenuity. The plant is perennial, which renders the annual planting of it altogether unnecessary. Out of the root and stalk of this plant, when it is fresh, comes a white milky juice, which is somewhat poisonous. Sometimes the fishing tackle of the Indians consists entirely of this hemp. The Europeans make no use of it, that I know of.[26]
In another place this author describes the weaving of bark fibers:
The _Direa palustris_, or Mouse-wood, is a little shrub which grows on hills, towards swamps and marshes, and was now in full blossom. The English in Albany call it Leather-wood, because its bark is as tough as leather. The French in Canada call it Bois de Plomb, or Leaden-wood because the wood itself is as soft and as tough as lead. The bark of this shrub was made use of for ropes, baskets, etc., by the Indians, whilst they lived among the Swedes. And it is really very fit for that purpose, on account of its remarkable strength, and toughness, which is equal to that of the Lime-tree bark. The English and the Dutch in many parts of North America, and the French in Canada, employ this bark in all cases where we make use of Lime-tree bark in Europe. The tree itself is very tough, and you cannot easily separate its branches without the help of a knife: some people employ the twigs for rods.[27]
De la Potherie, who wrote at an earlier date than Kalm, says--
The women spin on their knees, twisting the thread with the palm of the hand; they make this thread, which should rather be called twine (fisselle), into little balls.[28]
Hariot, John Smith, and Adair bear witness to the primitive practice of the art in Virginia and the Carolinas. Smith uses the following words:
Betwixt their hands and thighes, their women vse to spin, the barkes of trees, Deere sinewes, or a kinde of grasse they call Pemmenaw, of these they make a thread very even and readily. This thread serveth for many vses. As about their housing apparell, as also they make nets for fishing, for the quantitie as formally as ours. They make also with it lines for angles.[29]
The Cherokees and other Indians with whom Adair came in contact preserved in their purity many of the ancient practices. The following extracts are, therefore, of much importance to the historian of the textile art in America:
Formerly, the Indians made very handsome carpets. They have a wild hemp that grows about six feet high, in open, rich, level lands, and which usually ripens in July: it is plenty on our frontier settlements. When it is fit for use, they pull, steep, peel, and beat it; and the old women spin it off the distaffs, with wooden machines, having some clay on the middle of them, to hasten the motion. When the coarse thread is prepared, they put it into a frame about six feet square, and instead of a shuttle, they thrust through the thread with a long cane, having a large string through the web, which they shift at every second course of the thread. When they have thus finished their arduous labour, they paint each side of the carpet with such figures, of various colours, as their fruitful imaginations devise; particularly the images of those birds and beasts they are acquainted with; and likewise of themselves, acting in their social, and martial stations. There is that due proportion and so much wild variety in the design, that would really strike a curious eye with pleasure and admiration. J. W--t, Esq., a most skilful linguist in the Muskohge dialect, assures me, that time out of mind they passed the woof with a shuttle; and they have a couple of threddles, which they move with the hand so as to enable them to make good dispatch, something after our manner of weaving. This is sufficiently confirmed by their method of working broad garters, sashes, shot pouches, broad belts, and the like, which are decorated all over with beautiful stripes and chequers.