16 PREHISTORIC TEXTILE ART. [eth.ann.13 



The mats the Indian women make are of rushes, and about five feet high, and two 

 fathom long, and sewed double, that is, two together ; whereby they become very 

 commodious to lay under our ))eds, or to sleep on in the summer season in the day 

 time, and for our slaves in the night. 



There are other mats made of flags, whicli the Tuskeruro Indians make, and sell to 

 the inhabitants. 



The baskets our neighboring Indians make are all made of a very fine sort of bull- 

 rushes, and sometimes of silk grass, which they work with figures of beasts, birds, 

 fishes, ifcc. 



A great way up in the country, both baskets and mats are made of the split reeds, 

 which are only the outward shining part of the cane. Of these I have seen mats, 

 baskets, and dressing boxes, very artificially done.' 



James Adair, although a comparatively recent writer, gives such 

 definite and valuable information regarding the handiwork of the South- 

 ern Indians that the following extracts may well be made. Speaking 

 of the Cherokees, he remarks : 



They make the handsomest clothes baskets, I ever saw, considering their materials. 

 They divide large swamp canes, into long, thin, narrow splinters, which they dye of 

 several colours, and manage the workmanshii> so well, that both the inside and out- 

 side are covered with a beautiful variety of pleasing figures; and, though for the 

 space of two inches below the upper edge of each basket, it is worked into one, through 

 the other parts they are worked asunder, as if they were two, joined a-top by some 

 strong cement. A large nest consists of eight or ten baskets, contained within each 

 other. Their dimensions are difl'erent, but they usuallj' make the outside basket 

 about a foot deep, a foot and an half broad, and almost a yard long." 



This Statement could in most respects be made with equal truth and 

 l^ropriety of the Cherokee work of the present time; and their pre- 

 Columbian art must have been even more pleasing, as the following 

 paragraph suggests: 



The Indians, by reason of our supplying them so cheap with every sort of goods, 

 have forgotten the chief part of their ancient mechanical skill, so as not to be well 

 able now, at least for some years, to live independent of us. Formerly, those baskets 

 which the Cheerake made, were so highly esteemed even in South Carolina, the 

 politest of our colonies, for domestic usefulness, beauty, and skilful variety, that a 

 large nest of them cost upwards of a moidore.^ 



That there was much uniformity in the processes aud range of prod- 

 ucts and uses throughout the country is apparent from statements made 

 by numerouswriters. Speaking of the Louisiana Indians, Du Pratz says : 



The women likewise make a kind of hampers to carry corn, flesh, fish, or any other 

 thing which they want to transport from one place to another; they are round, 

 deeper than broad, aud of all sizes. * * * They make baskets with long lids that 

 roll doubly over them, and in these they place their earrings and pendants, their 

 bracelets, garters, their ribbands for their hair, and their Vermillion for painting 

 themselves, if they have any, but when they have no vermiUiou they boil ochre, and 

 paint themselves with that.^ 



It happens that few baskets have been recovered from mounds and 

 graves, but they are occasionally reported as having been discovered in 



' Hist, of Cafolina, etc., John Lawson. London, 1714, pp. 307, 308. 



^Histon,- of the American Indians. London, 1775, p. 424. 



3 1bi(i., p. 424. 



"Hiat. Louisiana. Enylisli translation, London, 1763, vol. u, pp. 227-228. 



