A SUGGESTED STUDY OF COSTUMES 



467 



These are of woven 

 cloth, remarkably fine, 

 but of a curious pat- 

 tern. They are like 

 rectangular bags with 

 a hole for the head 

 and one for each arm. 

 These people like many 

 others did not cut their 

 cloth but Move the 

 garment entire. Now, 

 weaving in the primi- 

 tive sense, and even in 

 modern times, must 

 proceed in rectanguhir 

 units; hence, a woven 

 garment is bound to be 

 rectangular and once 

 again we find the con- 

 tour of a shirt largely 

 the inevitable result of 

 the choice of materials. 

 If, on the other hand, 

 we go to the Eskimo 

 collections, we find true 

 coats of elaborate pat- 

 tern, cut and fitted 



Variations in the Indian woman's garment among different tribes. Even 

 when the use of trade cloth has done away with some of the features of the 

 original skin garments, the pattern concept remains the same 



without apparent re- 

 gard to the natural forms of the material. 

 In contrast to all the clothing we have so 

 far examined, these people cut up their 

 material and fit it to the lines of the 

 body; in other words, they are real 

 tailors and very good ones too. The 

 only other people in all the two Americas 

 who cut up and fit their material are 

 those living adjacent to the Eskimo 

 in the north. In the Old World, we 

 find that neither the Greeks nor the 

 Romans cut their cloth but the ancient 

 Chinese did. Then to the north of 

 the Chinese we find in modern times 



the wild people of Siberia who made 

 clothes like the Eskimo, as may be seen 

 in the exhibits. The Lapps of Europe 

 and possibly some of the early Slavs 

 and Teutons were tailors, but if we pass 

 over the strictly modern development 

 of pattern cutting to fit the body, we 

 find the idea only among the Chinese 

 and the peoples occupying the Arctic 

 belts of the Old and New World. Thus 

 it is that the study of so simple a matter 

 as clothing may lead the Museum visitor 

 into an important chapter of the history 

 of culture. 



