Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States | Page 6

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