Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States Part 1

Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery.

by William Henry Holmes.

INTRODUCTORY.

It is not my intention in this paper to make an exhaustive study of the art of weaving as practiced by the ancient peoples of this country. To do this would necessitate a very extended study of the materials used and of the methods of preparing them, as well as of the arts of spinning and weaving practiced by primitive peoples generally. This would be a very wide field, and one which I have no need of entering. I may state here, however, that the materials used by savages in weaving their simple fabrics consist generally of the fibre of bark, flax, hemp, nettles, and gra.s.ses, which is spun into thread of various sizes; or of splints of wood, twigs, roots, vines, porcupine quills, feathers, and a variety of animal tissues, either plaited or used in an untwisted state.

The articles produced are mats, baskets, nets, bags, plain cloths, and entire garments, such as capes, hats, belts, and sandals.

It has been noticed by a few authors that twisted or plaited cords, as well as a considerable variety of woven fabrics, have been used by primitive tribes in the manufacture and ornamentation of pottery.

Impressions of these made in the soft clay are frequently preserved on very ancient ware, the original fabrics having long since crumbled to dust. It is to these that I propose calling attention, their restoration having been successfully accomplished in many hundreds of cases by taking impressions in clay from the ancient pottery.

The perfect manner in which the fabric in all its details of plaiting, netting, and weaving can be brought out is a matter of astonishment; the cloth itself could hardly make all the particulars of its construction more manifest.

The examples presented in the accompanying plate will be very instructive, as the fragment of pottery is given on the left, with its rather obscure intaglio impressions, and the clay cast on the right with the cords of the fabric in high relief. The great body of ill.u.s.trations have been made in pen directly from the clay impressions, and, although details are more distinctly shown than in the specimens themselves, I believe that nothing is presented that cannot with ease be seen in the originals. Alongside of these restorations I have placed ill.u.s.trations of fabrics from other primitive sources.

There appears to be a pretty general impression that baskets of the ordinary rigid character have been extensively used by our ancient peoples in the manufacture of pottery to build the vessel in or upon; but my investigations tend to show that such is not the case, and that nets or sacks of pliable materials have been almost exclusively employed. These have been applied to the surface of the vessel, sometimes covering the exterior entirely, and at others only the body or a part of the body. The interior surface is sometimes partially decorated in the same manner.

The nets or other fabrics used have generally been removed before the vessel was burned or even dried. Professor Wyman, in speaking casually of the cord-marked pottery of Tennessee, says:

"It seems incredible that even an Indian would be so prodigal of time and labor as to make the necessary quant.i.ty of well-twisted cord or thread, and weave it into shape for the mere purpose of serving as a mold which must be destroyed in making a single copy."

This remark is, however, based upon a false a.s.sumption. The fact that the net or fabric has generally been removed while the clay was still soft being susceptible of easy proof. I have observed in many cases that handles and ornaments have been added, and that impressed and incised designs have been made in the soft clay _after_ the removal of the woven fabric; besides this there would be no need of the support of a net after the vessel had been fully finished and slightly hardened.

Furthermore, I have no doubt that these _textilia_ were employed as much for the purpose of enhancing the appearance of the vessel as for supporting it during the process of construction. I have observed, in relation to this point, that in a number of cases, notably the great salt vessels of Saline River, Illinois, the fabric has been applied after the vessel was finished. I arrive at this conclusion from having noticed that the loose threads of the net-like cover sag or festoon toward the rim as if applied to the inverted vessel, Fig. 82. If the net had been used to suspend the vessel while building, the threads would necessarily have hung in the opposite direction.

In support of the idea that ornament was a leading consideration in the employment of these coa.r.s.e fabrics, we have the well-known fact that simple cord-markings, arranged to form patterns, have been employed by many peoples for embellishment alone. This was a common practice of the ancient inhabitants of Great Britain, as shown by Jewett. The accompanying cut (Fig. 60) is copied from his work.[1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 60.--Ancient British vase with cord ornamentation.]

[Footnote 1: Jewett, Llewellynn: Grave mounds and their contents, p. 92.]

It is a remarkable fact that very few entire cord-marked vessels have been obtained in this country, although fragments of such are very plentiful.

In Fig. 61 we have an ancient vase from Pennsylvania. It presents a combination of net or basket markings and of separate cord-markings.

The regularity of the impressions upon the globular body indicates almost unbroken contact with the interior surface of the woven vessel.

The neck and rim have apparently received finis.h.i.+ng touches by separately impressing cords or narrow bands of some woven fabric.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 61.--Ancient fabric marked vessel, Pennsylvania.]

Many examples show very irregular markings such as might have been made by rolling the plastic vessel irregularly upon a woven surface, or by molding it in an improvised sack made by tying up the margins of a piece of cloth.

It is necessary to distinguish carefully the cord and fabric markings from the stamped designs so common in southern pottery, as well as from the incised designs, some of which imitate fabric markings very closely.

I shall present at once a selection from the numerous examples of the fabrics restored. For convenience of study I have arranged them in six groups, some miscellaneous examples being added in a seventh group.

For comparison, a number of ill.u.s.trations of both ancient and modern textiles are presented.

In regard to methods of manufacture but little need be said. The appliances used have been extremely simple, the work in a vast majority of cases having been done by hand. It is probable that in many instances a simple frame has been used, the threads of the web or warp being fixed at one end and those of the woof being carried through them by the fingers or by a simple needle or shuttle. A loom with a device for carrying the alternate threads of the warp back and forth may have been used, but that form of fabric in which the threads are twisted in pairs at each crossing of the woof could only have been made by hand.

The probable methods will be dwelt upon more in detail as the groups are presented. In verifying the various methods of fabrication I have been greatly a.s.sisted by Miss Kate C. Osgood, who has successfully reproduced, in cotton cord, all the varieties discovered, all the mechanism necessary being a number of pins set in a drawing board or frame, in the form of three sides of a rectangle, the warp being fixed at one end only and the woof pa.s.sing back and forth between the lateral rows of pins, as shown in Fig. 74.

FIRST GROUP.

Fig. 62 ill.u.s.trates a small fragment of an ordinary coffee sack which I take as a type of the first group. It is a loosely woven fabric of the simplest construction; the two sets of threads being interwoven at right angles to each other, alternate threads of one series pa.s.sing over and under each of the opposing series as shown in the section, Fig. 63.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 62.--Type of Group one--portion of a coffee sack.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 63.--Section.]

It is a remarkable fact that loosely woven examples of this kind of cloth are rarely, if ever, found among the impressions upon clay or in the fabrics themselves where preserved by the salts of copper or by charring. The reason of this probably is that the combination is such that when loosely woven the threads would not remain in place under tension, and the twisted and knotted varieties were consequently preferred.

It is possible that many of the very irregular impressions observed, in which it is so difficult to trace the combinations of the threads, are of distorted fabrics of this cla.s.s.

This stuff may be woven by hand in a simple frame, or by any of the primitive forms of the loom.

In most cases, so far as the impressions upon pottery show, when this particular combination is employed, the warp is generally very heavy and the woof comparatively light. This gives a cloth differing greatly from the type in appearance; and when, as is usually the case, the woof threads are beaten down tightly, obscuring those of the web, the resemblance to the type is quite lost.

Examples of this kind of weaving may be obtained from the fictile remains of nearly all the Atlantic States.

The specimen presented in Fig. 64 was obtained from a small fragment of ancient pottery from the State of New York.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 64.--Fabric impressed upon ancient pottery, New York.]

It is generally quite difficult to determine which set of threads is the warp and which the woof. In most cases I have preferred to call the more closely placed threads the woof, as they are readily beaten down by a baton, whereas it would be difficult to manipulate the warp threads if so closely placed. In the specimen ill.u.s.trated, only the tightly woven threads of the woof appear. The impression is not sufficiently distinct to show the exact character of the thread, but there are indications that it has been twisted. The regularity and prominence of the ridges indicate a strong, tightly drawn warp.

Fig. 65 represents a form of this type of fabric very common in impressions upon the pottery of the Middle Atlantic States. This specimen was obtained from a small potsherd picked up near Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. The woof or cross-threads are small and uniform in thickness, and pa.s.s alternately over and under the somewhat rigid fillets of the web.

The apparent rigidity of these fillets may result from the tightening of the series when the fabric was applied to the plastic surface of the vessel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 65.--From a fragment of ancient pottery, District of Columbia.]

I present in Fig. 66 the only example of the impression of a woven fabric found by the writer in two summers' work among the remains of the ancient Cliff-Dwellers. It was obtained from the banks of the San Juan River, in southeastern Utah. It is probably the imprint of the interior surface of a more or less rigid basket, such as are to be seen among many of the modern tribes of the Southwest. The character of the warp cannot be determined, as the woof, which has been of moderately heavy rushes or other untwisted, vegetable fillets, entirely hides it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 66.--From a fragment of ancient Cliff-house pottery.]

The caves of Kentucky have furnished specimens of ancient weaving of much interest. One of these, a small fragment of a mat apparently made from the fiber of bark, or a fibrous rush, is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 67.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 67.--Fabric from a cave in Kentucky.]

This simple combination of the web and woof has been employed by all ancient weavers who have left us examples of their work. The specimen given in Fig. 68 is the work of the ancient Lake-Dwellers of Switzerland. It is a mat plaited or woven of strips of bast, and was found at Robenhausen, having been preserved in a charred state.[2]

Keller gives another example of a similar fabric of much finer texture in Fig. 8, Pl. Cx.x.xVI.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 68.--Fabric from Swiss Lake-Dwellings.]

[Footnote 2: Keller: Lake-Dwellers. Fig. 2, Pl. Cx.x.xIV.]

An ill.u.s.tration of this form of fabric is given by Foster,[3] and reproduced in Fig. 69.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 69.--Cloth from a mound, Ohio.]

[Footnote 3: Foster: Prehistoric Times.]