INDIAN" COSTUMES — KRIEGER 657 



No. 326875, U. S. N. M.) came as a gift of Mrs. H. M. Packard; the 

 other (Cat. No. 339886, U. S. N. M.) was presented by Mr. Darwin 

 Weaver. The Saltillo serape is the best example of the blanket 

 weaver's art, although weaves and textiles from tribes occupying 

 other parts of the Mexican tableland are also highly artistic. Some 

 of the outstanding examples of Mexican Indian textiles were col- 

 lected for the Museum by Walter Hough, Edward Palmer, E. W. 

 Nelson, A. Hrdlicka, and W. H. Holmes. 



An interesting collection of middle American textiles and articles 

 of dress was made by W. H. Gabb, principally among the Talamanca 

 Indians of Costa Rica and Guatemala. It includes masks and dance 

 costumes, woven belts, sashes, embroidered cotton jackets, ceremonial 

 headdresses of feathers and bark, and bark-cloth blankets. 



The tribes of Panama are of interest as forming the connecting 

 link between the Mexican, Central American, and South American 

 cultures, being on the whole more closely allied to the latter. The 

 Choco Indians of southeastern Panama, for example, are related 

 cultura^y to the adjoining Choco Tribes of the Cauca River Valley, 

 of northern Colombia. Ear pendants carried by the Colombian 

 Choco are long wooden tubular plugs, resembling those in the 

 Museum collection from the Panaman Choco. A silver disk of thin 

 rolled silver is mounted over the outer surface of the bulbous end 

 of the plug. 



The Choco woman's dress is ordinarily quite simple like that of the 

 Tule, consisting of a piece of calico cloth several feet long wrapped 

 around the hips, forming a skirt extending a J.ittle below the knees. 

 (PL 31.) Little girls are given one of these skirts at puberty; at 

 the same time the little boy is given his first breechcloth. 



Pieces of bark cloth were formerly much utilized by the Panaman 

 Indians as clothing and for various other purposes, such as matting, 

 bedding, breechclouts, and women's short skirts. Bark cloth has 

 decorated surfaces consisting of parallel, diagonal lines and of other 

 geometrical figures made with a black dye. All of the Panaman 

 Indian Tribes understand the use of the loom and of the spindle. 

 The Talamanca of Costa Rica, the Cuna and Tule of Panama all 

 employ similar devices and weaving implements. One of the ex- 

 amples of loom work on which the Darien Indian lavishes his best 

 efforts in figured design is the woven headband, worn on gala 

 occasions. It is woven on a simple weaving frame. 



The Cuna Indians of the Panaman interior were formerly sup- 

 posed to have a system of pictographic writing expressed in applique 

 work. The designs were copied by the Tule (pis. 32, 33), but the 

 ideographic significance of the characters and animal figures re- 

 mained unknown to them. The use of an applique-embroidered 

 woman's garment in the form of a chemise was first brought to view 



