SwANTON] INiDIANS OF THE &OUTHEASTE1RN UNITED STATES 457 



tioned by the De Soto chroniclers and none of Lawson's informants 

 could have had knowledge of a period preceding that. Thus, the Fi- 

 dalgo of Elvas says that the men "have their privies covered with 

 a truss of deerskin resembling the breechclouts formerly worn in Spain" 

 (Robertson, 1933, p. 76). Evidently Garcilaso's informants had in 

 mind the same article of apparel when they stated that the people of 

 Florida "go about naked except for some garments of chamois skin 

 of various colors almost like very short breeches, which cover them 

 decently, as much as necessary, before and behind" (Garcilaso, 1723, p. 

 6). So far as our information goes, this was made in much the same 

 manner throughout the Gulf area. Until European cloth was intro- 

 duced, it was almost invariably made of skin. Deerskin is specifically 

 mentioned as in use for that purpose by the Timucua, the Indians of 

 Guale (Garcia, 1902, p. 189), the Algonquians of North Carolina and 

 Virginia, the eastern Siouan tribes, and the Natchez, and implied for 

 the Cherokee (Lawson, 1860, p. 310; Timberlake, Williams ed., 1927, 

 p. 77). 



The only references to any other material are in southern Florida 

 which, as we have seen, constituted a somewhat distinct economic 

 province. According to Fontaneda, the Calusa breechclout was of 

 "braided palm leaves," and Dickenson saw some on the southeast coast 

 composed of "a plaitwork of straws." (Fontaneda in Doc. Inedit., 

 1866, vol. 5, pp. 532-533; Dickenson, 1803, pp. 33-34; Swanton, 1922, 

 pp. 387, 391.) San Miguel seems to carry the area over which this 

 was spread up on the east coast as far as St. Augustine for, speaking 

 mainly of those Indians, he says that they "wear nothing more than 

 a breechclout woven of palmetto, four fingers wide with three ends, 

 two passing around the waist and the other hanging down, each 

 terminating in a tassel of the same palmetto, and all three together 

 make a sort of broom which partly covers the buttocks." (Garcia, 

 1902, pp. 208-209.) 



In later times English strouds, French Limbourgs, and other Euro- 

 pean materials of course took the place of everything aboriginal. The 

 Creeks who accompanied Oglethorpe in his attack on St. Augustine in 

 1843 wore "flaps of red or blue Bays, hanging by a Girdle of the same" 

 (Kimber, 1744, p. 16). Before the end of the eighteenth century 

 Bartram could write regarding the breechclout: 



It usually consists of a piece of blue cloth, about eighteen inches wide; this 

 may pass between their thighs, and both ends being taken up and drawn through 

 a belt round their waist, the ends fall down one before, and the other behind, 

 not quite to the knee. [He adds that it] is usually plaited and indented at 

 the ends, and ornamented with beads, tinsel lace, etc. (Bartram, 1792, p. 500.) 



Adair (1775, p. 8) gives the dimensions as an ell and a half long 

 by a quarter of an ell wide, i. e., about 5i/^ feet long by 1 foot wide. 



