NO. 8 MANAIIOAC TRIBES IN VIRGINIA BUSH NELL 55 



aprons which their women wear aljout their middles, for decency's 

 sake." The plant mentioned by Colonel Byrd may have been the 

 Asclepias pulchra. Undoubtedly, the Manahoac likewise made exten- 

 sive use of the plant, which would have been found growing through- 

 out their country. 



Finely twisted sinew was used, as related by Captain Smith, but 

 the larger, coarser cords were probably formed of the wool or hair 

 of wild animals. Buffalo must have been known to the people by 

 whom the pottery was made, as it is evident they were to have been 

 encountered within a few miles of the falls of the Rappahannock only 

 6 years after the settlement of Jamestown. To quote from Purchas. 

 when he wrote concerning conditions in Virginia (p. 759) : " 



Master Whitakcr in his letter and book from Henrico 1612, testifieth the 

 health and welfare of the Colonic. Samuel Argall in the yeare 1613, affirmed 

 likewise that he found the state of Virginia farre better then was reported. 

 In one voyage they had gotten one thousand and one hundred bushells of corne : 

 they found a slow kinde of Cattell, as bigge as Kine, which were good meate. 



Buffalo alone among the beasts encountered in Virginia could have 

 been so described. But they may never have been very numerous, 

 which would account for the lack of references by other writers of 

 the period. 



Cords made of the wool and hair of the buffalo were undoubtedly 

 woven into a textile such as was impressed on the surface of large 

 vessels, fragments of some of which were discovered on the site 

 at Skinkers Ford. Bags would have been made of the same mate- 

 rial, similar to specimens collected in the Mississippi Valley in the 

 eighteenth century and now preserved in European museums. 



The native tribes of the Rapidan-Rappahannock area may also 

 have followed a custom practiced by the Indians of Carolina of 

 using the hair or wool of the opossum as mentioned by Lawson '"' 

 who wrote, when referring to the opossum (p. 121) : " Their Fur 

 is not esteem'd nor used, save that the Indians spin it into Girdles 

 and Garters." 



CONCLUSION 



The material discovered during the recent examination of sites 

 on the banks of the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers indicates two, 

 and possibly more, distinct periods of occupation, which may have 

 been separated by centuries. 



" Purchas, Samuel, Purchas his Pilgrimage Second ed., London, 1614. 



^^ Lawson, John, History of Carolina, London, 1714. 



