418 



PREHISTORIC TEXTILE FABRICS. 



the method of plaiting sandals practiced by the aucieut inhabitants of 

 Kentucky. Numbers of these very interesting relics have been ob- 

 tained from the great eaves of that State. They are beautifully woven, 

 and well shaped to the foot. 



The fiber has the. appearance of bast and is plaited in untwisted 

 strands, after the manner shown in the illustration. Professor Putman 

 describes a number of cast-off sandals from Salt Cave, Kentucky, as 

 "neatly made of finely braided and twisted leaves of rushes." 5 



Fig. 102 illustrates a somewhat similar method of plaiting practiced by 

 the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland, from one of Keller's figures. 6 



Fig. 102.— BraidiDg done bj' the Lake-Dwellers. 



SIXTH GROUP. 



The art of making nets of spun and twisted cords seems to have been 

 practiced by many of the ancient peoples of America. Beautiful ex- 

 amples have been found in the huacas of the Incas and in the tombs of 

 the Aztecs. They were used by the prehistoric tribes of California and 

 the ancient inhabitants of Alaska. Nets were in use by the Indians of 

 Florida and Virginia at the. time of the discovery, and the ancient pot- 

 tery of the Atlantic States has preserved impressions of a number of 

 varieties. It is possible that some of these impressions may be from 

 European nets, but we have plentiful historical proof that nets of hemp 

 were in use by the natives, and as all of this pottery is very old it is 

 probable that the impressions upon the fragments are from nets of 

 native manufacture. 



Wyman states that nets or net impressions have not been found 

 among the antiquities of Tennessee. I have found, however, that the 

 pottery of Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland furnish examples of net- 



s Putnam, F. W. Eigbth Annual Report of the Peabody Museum, p. 49. 

 ' Keller, Dr. F. Lake Dwellers. Fig. 3 ; PI. CXXXVI. 



