2 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



southwest from Sparta, and twenty miles from Mc]\Iinnville. One of them was a 

 male, the other a female. They were interred in baskets made of cane curiously 

 wrought, and evidencing considerable mechanical skill. They were both dislocated 

 at the hip-joint, and were placed erect in the baskets, with a covering of cane 

 made to fit the inclosure in which they were placed. The flesh of their bodies 

 was undecayed, of a brown color, and adherent to the bones and sinews. Around 

 the female, next to the body, was wrapped a well-dressed doe-skin ; next to this 

 was a mat very curiously wrought from the bark of a tree, and feathers. The 

 bark seemed to have been made into small strands, well twisted. Around each of 

 these strands feathers were rolled, and the whole was woven into cloth of a fine 

 texture, after the manner of our common, coarse fabrics. This mat was about 

 three feet Avide, and between six and seven feet in length. The wliole of the 

 fabric thus formed of bark was completely covered by the feathers, the body of it 

 being about one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and the feathers extending about 

 one-quarter of an inch from the strand to which they were attached. The appear- 

 ance was highly diversified by green, yellow, and black feathers, presenting diftcrent 

 shades of color when exposed to the sunlight in diftcrent positions. The next 

 covering was an undressed doe-skin, around wliich was rolled, in good order, a 

 plain shroud, manufactured after the same plan as tlie one ornamented with 

 feathers. This article resembled very much, in its texture, the bags generally 

 used for the purpose of holding coffee exported from Havana to the United States. 

 The female had in her hand a fan formed of the tail feathers of a turkey, bound 

 with buckskin strings and scarlet-colored hair, so as to open and sliut readily. 

 The hair of the mummies was still remaining upon their heads, and was of a yellow 

 cast and of very fine texture. 



De Soto, during his march in 1539 and 1540 through the territory now included 

 within the limits of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, saw great numbers 

 of similar feathered mantles among various Indian nations ; and the Mexicans, at 

 the time of the Spanish conquest, were clad in similar garments. John Lawson, 

 in his "New Voyage to Carolina," in describing his visit to the King of Santce, 

 says : " He brought with him their chief doctor or physician, who was warmly and 

 neatly clad with a match-coat made of turkeys' feathers, which makes a pretty 

 show, seeming as if it Avas a garment of the deepest silk shag," p. 18. In the 

 island of 0-why-hee, in the Pacific Ocean, in the year 1777, when Captain Cook 

 visited it, the king and his chiefs were dressed in red feathered cloaks, which in 

 point of beauty and magnificence were said to have been nearly equal to those of 

 any other nation. Fans were made there also of the fibres of the cocoa-nut, of the 

 tail feathers of the cock and of the tropic bird, and also feathered caps were worn. 

 In 1730, the Indians of North Carolina used feathered match coats, exceedingly 

 pretty, says Dr. Brickel ; some of which, he also remarks, are beautifully wrought 

 with a variety of colors and figures, Avhich seem at a distance like a fine flowered 

 silk shag. When new and fresh, he continues, they serve for a bed instead of a 

 quilt. Some match-coats, he says, were made of hair, or of raccoon, beaver, or 

 squirrel skins ; others again were made of the green parts of the skin of the mal- 

 lard's head or of the skins of other fowls, which they stitch or sew perfectly avcU 



