432 BUREAU OF AMERICAl^ ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



calumet. It is possibly of some significance that most of these "flags" 

 were reported from the western part of the Gulf area. 



CUSHIONS 



A pillow might readily be devised by rolling up a mat (Beverley, 

 1705, bk. 3, p. 12) or by throwing a mat or blanket over some soft ma- 

 terial such as Spanish moss. Wlien the lady of Cofitachequi crossed 

 Savannah River to welcome De Soto, she sat on "two cushions, one 

 on top of the other" laid upon a mat under an awning in the back 

 part of a canoe (Robertson, 1933, p. 91). Later on, the same sort of 

 seat was prepared for Tascalusa "on an elevated place" where he was 

 awaiting the Spaniards (Robertson, 1933, p. 121). Ranjel not only 

 notes the cushions, but says that when Tascalusa marched on from 

 this town in company with the white men one of his servants car- 

 ried a cushion (Bourne, 1904, vol. 2, pp. 120, 122). The chief of 

 Coga came out to meet them seated on a cushion in a litter borne 

 on the shoulders of his principal men (Robertson, 1933, p. 115). In 

 an account of the "Proceedings of the English Colonies in Virginia," 

 it is said that when the colonists visited Powhatan in 1608 he re- 

 ceived them seated upon a bed of mats "his pillow of leather im- 

 broydred (after their rude manner) with pearle and white beades" 

 (Tyler, 1907, p. 134). Quite different was the pillow seen in Florida 

 by Sir John Hawkins. "They sleepe," says his chronicler Spark, 

 "upon certeine pieces of wood hewin in for the bowing of their backs, 

 and another place made high for their heads" (Burrage, 1906, p. 119). 

 Possibly this was of West Indian provenance. 



TOWELS AND SOAP 



Along with mention of some other refinements surrounding the 

 principal chiefs in Virginia and Carolina, we have one or two interest- 

 ing notes regarding the use of towels or towel substitutes. Smith says : 



When he (Powhatan) dineth or suppeth, one of his women, before and after 

 meat, bringeth him water in a wo [o] den platter to wash his hands. Another 

 waiteth with a bunch of feathers to wipe them insteed of a Towell, and the 

 feathers when he hath wiped are dryed againe. (Smith, John, Tyler ed., 1907, 

 pp. 114, 118; Strachey, 1849, p. 54.) 



Similarly Strachey, in describing the state observed by the wife 

 of a chief called Pipisco, states that her maid "brought her water for 

 her hands, and then a braunch or twoo of fresh greene asshen leaves, as 

 for a towell to dry them" (Strachey, 1849, p. 57) . 



Taldng a long leap in time and place, we may add that the Creeks 

 in relatively recent times were in the habit of making soap, hardly 

 facial soap however, by filling a hollow section of post oak full of 



