pip. jfo!' 2^5T' JOHN H. KERR RESERVOIR BASIN — ^MILLER 175 



This study is not intended as an exhaustive treatise on the art of 

 textile making or the techniques employed but rather simply to indi- 

 cate the existence of a variety of techniques and the end results of each 

 as indicated upon the surfaces of sherds. 



Mason (1904, p. 416, fig. 148) borrowed from Holmes an illustration 

 in which a woman is represented as seated beneath a tree weaving a 

 basket held suspended from one of the limbs. He says "It will be 

 remembered that in an ancient drawing showing how a Virginia 

 woman made basketry the woman is seated in precisely the same 

 fashion and is working from below upwards." That this was the 

 usual method of procedure cannot be supported, since it has never been 

 unequivocally docmnented. 



Weaving has been defined as "a process which unites a series of 

 parallel strands, or w^arps, by a crossing strand, or weft, which may 

 interlace, wrap, or twine, as it moves back and forth across the warp 

 strands to form an expanded surface" (Kissel, 1918, p. 83) . 



In defining the terminology, the warp is a series of yarn stretched 

 upon the loom preparatory to weaving. "The warp series is called 

 the setup. Weft, also called woof or filling, is the weaving yarn 

 carried by a bobbin or shuttle from one side to the other across the 

 warps" (O'Neale, 1942). 



Twined baskets are perhaps a survival of an earlier technique; 

 twilling was rather widespread and possibly slightly later. Some 

 textiles were utilized as articles of clothing during cold and inclement 

 weather to be discarded at the end of these periods; hence, very 

 little labor was expended upon textiles for everyday wear. Cere- 

 monial articles called for careful work and were more elaborate. 

 Vines, grasses, and other local flora, together with bits of fur and 

 feathers, as well as paint, furnished materials for this industry. On 

 the other hand, mats and some baskets were ma,de from strips of 

 split cane and small rods from trees. 



TEXTILES AND TEXTILE TECHNIQUES 



It has been indicated earlier that 



the ceramic art was intimately associated with the textile art and the earthen- 

 ware exhibits traces of this intimacy as one of its most constant characteristics. 

 These traces consist of impressions of textile articles made upon the plastic 

 clay during manufacture. . , . The textile art is no doubt the older art in this 

 region, as elsewhere, and the potter, working always with textile appliances 

 and with textile models before her, has borrowed many elements of form and 

 ornament from them. Textile forms and markings are thus a characteristic 

 of the initial stages of the ceramic art. . . . 



Whether the art passed through the textile stage with all peoples may remain 

 a question, for the traces are obliterated by lapse of time. We observe in 

 passing southward through the United States that the textile-marked wares 

 become less and less prevalent, though enough are still found in Florida and 



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