456 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



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

 are made extraordinary charming, containing several pretty figures wrought 

 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. . . . 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 sinews of the deer divided 

 very small, or silk grass. When they are finished, they look very fine, though 

 they must needs be very troublesome to make. (Lawson, 1860, pp. 311-312.) 



He met the chief doctor or physician of the Santee Nation "warmly 

 and neatly clad with a match coat, made of turkies feathers" (Law- 

 son, 1860, p. 37). 



Smith says: 



We have seen some [of the Virginia Indians] use mantels made of Turky 

 feathei'S, so prettily wrought and woven with threads that nothing could 

 bee discerned but the feathers, that was exceeding warme and very hand- 

 some (Smith, John, 1907 ed., p. 100.) 



Strachey (1849, p. 58) refers to mantles of blue feathers. 



There is much mention of feathers as ornaments in use in Flori- 

 da, but little about feather mantles, though Le Moyne speaks of 

 "many pieces of a stuff made of feathers, and most skilfully orna- 

 mented with rushes of different colors" sent in from the western 

 Timucua by a French officer (Le Moyne, 1875, p. 8; Swanton, 1922, 

 p. 347). 



During dances some of the Creek Indian men and probably those 

 of many other tribes carried turkey feather fans in their left hands 

 as a sign of leadership and also to protect their eyes from the fire. 

 They were carried about to some extent at other times. Speck says 

 of these, with reference to the Yuchi : 



The men furthermore affect the fan, wetcd, "turkey," of wild-turkey tail 

 feathers. The proper possession of this, however, is with the older men and 

 chiefs who spend much of their time in leisure. They handle the fan very 

 gracefully in emphasizing their gestures and in keeping insects away. During 

 ceremonies to carry the fan is a sign of leadership. It is passed to a dancer 

 as an invitation to lead the next dance. He, when he has completed his duty, 

 returns it to the master of ceremonies who then bestows it upon someone else. 

 The construction of the fan is very simple, the quills being merely strung to- 

 gether upon a string in several places near the base. (Speck, 1909, p. 52.) 



CLOTHING or MEN 



The breechclout was the one article of dress worn constantly by 

 all males other than infants and young children. It was the first to 

 be put on and the last to be laid aside, and when we read of an Indian 

 stripping himself naked for war or the ball game, we may confidently 

 assume, even when it is not specifically stated, that this particular ar- 

 ticle was excepted. Lawson says that it was not used before Euro- 

 peans entered the country, but he is plainly in error since it is men- 



