HOLMES] GARMENTS OF FEATHERS. 27 



Du Pratz, speaking of the fishing nets of the Louisiana Indians, states 

 that they "are meshed like ours and made of lime-tree bark; the large 

 fish are shot with arrows." ' 



Feather Work. 



Feather work was one of the most remarkable arts of the natives of 

 Mexico and other southern countries at the ijeriod of the conquest. The 

 feathers were sometimes woven in with the woof and sometimes applied 

 to a network base after the fashion of embroidery. Earely, it may be 

 imagined, were either spun or unspun fabrics woven of feathers alone. 

 Very pleasing specimens of ancient Peruvian feather work are recovered 

 from graves at Ancon and elsewhere, and the method of inserting the 

 feathers is illustrated in the Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of 

 Ethnology.^ In few instances has such work been recovered from 

 mounds or burial places, but there can be no doubt that the mound- 

 building tribes were experts in this art. Frequent mention is made of 

 the feather work of the natives by the earliest explorers of the Missis- 

 sippi valley, and the character of the work may be gathered from the 

 extracts already given and from those which follow. 



John Smith, speaking of the feather work of the Virginia Indians, says: 



We haiie seene somo vse mantels made of Turky featbers, so prettily wrought and 

 woven with threads that nothing could be discerned but the feathers.^ 



Lawsoii mentions a "doctor" of the San tee nation who " was warmly 

 and neatly clad with a match coat, made of turkies feathers, which makes 

 a pretty show, seeming as if it was a garment of the deepest silk shag."* 



In another place the same author says : 



Their feather match coats are very pretty, especially some of them, which are made 

 extraordinary charming, containing several pretty figures wroiight in feathers, 

 making them seem like a fine flower silk shag; and when new and fresh, they become 

 a bed very well, instead of a quilt. Some of another sort are made of hair, raccoon, 

 bever,ors(iuirrel skins, which arevery warm. Others again are made of the green part 

 of the skin of a mallard's head, which they sew perfectly well together, their thread 

 being either the siuews of a deer divided very small, or silk grass. When these are 

 finished, they look very finely, though they must needs be very troublesome to make.* 



Du Pratz thus describes the art in Louisiana: 



If the women know how to do this kind of work they make mantles either of 

 feathers or woven of the bark of the mulberry tree. We will describe their method 

 of doing this. The feather mantles are made on a frame similar to that on which 

 the peruke makers work hair; they spread the feathers in the same manner and 

 fasten them on old fish nets or old mantles of mulberry bark. They are placed, 

 spread in this manner, one over the other and on both sides; for this purpose small 

 turkey feathers are used; women who have feathers of swans or India ducks, which 

 are white, make these feather mantles for women of high rank." 



' Histoire de la Louisiane, vol. ii, pp. 179-180. 



' The Textile Art, W. H. Holmes, p. 231. 



^Hist. Virginia, John Smith. Kichmonil, IRlil, vol. i, p. 130. 



' Hisl. Carolina. John Lawson. Raleigh, 18(10. p. 37. 



> Ibid., pp. 311-312. 



•■Hist, de la Louiaiane, vol. u. pi>. 191-192. 



