Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States Part 4

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 fas.h.i.+on 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'Amerique, 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'Amerique 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 pa.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY THIRTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. II MAT OF. SPLIT CANE.]

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, finis.h.i.+ng, 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 coa.r.s.e 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. Mitch.e.l.l, 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]