HOLMES) WOVEN GARMENTS. 25 



the town of Pacaha was captured, aud the Spaniards clotlie<l them- 

 selves with mantles, cassocks, and gowns made from these native gar- 

 ments. Everywhere woven shawls were a principal feature of the 

 propitiatory gifts of the natives to the Spaniards. 



The extent of this manufacture of hempen garments by the Indians of 

 the lower Mississippi is well indicated in the account of the adventures 

 of the expedition on tlie western side of the Mississippi at Aminoga. 

 The Spaniards undertook the construction of brigautines by means of 

 which they hoped to descend the Mississippi and to pass along the gulf 

 coast to Mexico. A demand was made upon the natives for shawls 

 to be used in the manufacture of sails, and great numbers were brought. 

 Native hemp and the ravelings of shawls were used for calking the 

 boats.' What a novel sight must have been this first European fleet on 

 the great river, consisting of five brigantiues impelled by sails of native 

 manufacture ! 



It is worthy of note that in this region (of the lower Mississippi) the 

 Spaniards saw shawls of cotton, brought, it was said, from the west — 

 probably the Pueblo country, as they were accompanied by objects that 

 from the description may have been ornaments of turquois.^ 



The following is from Du Pratz : 



Many of the women wear cloaks of the bark of the luulberry-tree, or of the feathers 

 of swans, turkies, or India ducks. The bark they take from young mulberry shoots 

 that rise from the roots of trees that have been cut down; after it is dried in the sun 

 they beat it to make all the woody part fall off, and they give the threads that 

 remain a second beating, after which they bleach them by exposing them to the dew. 

 When they are well whitened they spin them about the coarseness of pack-thread, 

 and weave them iu the following manner: they plant two stakes in -the ground 

 about a yard and a half asunder, and having stretched a cord from the one to the 

 other, they fasten their threads of bark double to this cord, aud then interweave them 

 in a curious mauuer into a cloak of about a yard square with a wrought border 

 round the edges. > - ' xhe girls at the age of eight or teu put on a little petti- 

 coat, which is a kind of friuge made of threads of mulberry bark:^ 



This is illustrated farther on. 



Tlie manner of weaving in the middle and upper Mississippi country 

 is described by Hunter, who, speaking of the Osage Indians and their 

 neighbors, says: 



The hair of the buft'alo aud other animals is sometimes manufactured into blankets; 

 the hair is first twisted by hand, and wound iuto balls. The warp is then laid of a 

 length to answer the size of the intended blanket, crossed by three small smooth 

 rods alternately beneath the threads, and secured at each end to stronger rods sup- 

 ported on forks, at a short distance above the ground. Thus prepared, the woof is 

 filled in, thread by thread, and pressed closely together, by means of a long flattened 

 wooden needle. When the weaving is finished, the ends of the warp aud woof are 



• Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conqneat of Florida as told l>y a Knight of 

 Elvas. Tran.slated b.v Bnckinghani Smith. New York, 1866, p. ltiU-70. 

 'Ibid., ]i. 164. 

 'Hist. Louisiana, op. cit., vol. n, p. 23. 



