PREHISTORIC TEXTILE ART. 



[ETH. ANN. 13 



strands are gatliereil in sliglitly twisted groups of four and carried up 

 free for about two inches, when tliey are brought together and plaited 

 ■with remarkable neatness into a string border. As if to convey to the 

 curious investigator of modern times a complete knowledge of their 

 weavers' art, the friends of the dead depositeil with the body not only 

 the fabrics worn during life but a number of skeins of the liber from 

 which the fabrics were probably made. This fiber lias been identified 

 as that of the Cannabis satira, or wild hemp. Two of the skeins are 

 shown in plate V. 



The presence of these uuw.orked materials makes it probable that the 

 individual burned was a female, for the distaff and the loom have been 

 and are universal emblems of the practical enslavement of that sex. 



A .small but very instructive 

 group of burial fabrics is pre- 

 served in the National Museum. 

 These specimens were found with 

 a desiccated body in 1877 in a 

 cave 8 miles from Mammoth cave, 

 Kentucky. They consist of a num- 

 ber of bags and other articles 

 woven in the usual styles of bast 

 and hemp. Nearly all of the 

 articles are woi'n or fragmentary, 

 but the fiber is wonderfully pre- 

 served and the original colors are 

 as I'resh as if the burial had taken 

 ])lace but yesterday. There are 

 three wide-mouthed, shallow bags, 

 resenil)ling the one from Tennessee 

 illustrated in plate v. The largest 

 is 34 inches long when closed, and 

 15 inches deep. Both web and 

 woof are of bast. There is a border of open work bound by a plaited 

 band as seen in figure 8, and the manner of weaving is identical with 

 that shown in that figure. The second bag is 22 inches long and 16 

 deep. The web is of bast, the woof of hemp. The smaller specimen is 

 14 by fl inclies and is made exclusively of hemp, and is thus much more 

 l)liable than the others. The small remnant of a larger bag shows a 

 ■web of heavy, plaited bast strands resembling the specimen impressed 

 «n i)ottery and shown in a, i)late ix. Besides these pieces there is a bit 

 of heavy, compactly woven stuff, resembling the broad part of a sling, 

 which shows traces of a geometric pattern, and a piece of flatfish rope 

 12 feet long and 12 inches broad plaited very neatly of hempen twine. 

 Among a number of cave relics from Kentucky donated to the Museum 

 by Mr. Francis Klett, are some textile articles. Among these is a san- 

 dal or moccasin woven or plaited very neatly of bast. It is shown in 



Flu. 8.— Border of bag 



