458 BUREAU OF AMERICAK ETHlSrOLOGY [Bull. 137 



The usual method of wearing this is as given by Bartram, but if 

 we may trust White's drawings, it must have been usual in the Sound 

 country of North Carolina to hang it over the belt only in front. 

 This, however, may have been a minor local variation since Hariot 

 seems to say that the men of Roanoke wore a skin hanging down both 

 before and behind. (Also Catesby, 1731-43, vol. 2, p.vin. ) Neverthe- 

 less, breechclouts sometimes ended at the belt where they were tucked in 

 (Speck, 1907, p. 110). The illustrations accompanying Jacques Le 

 Moyne's work show a single skin wrapped around the hips and 

 apparently without any belt, but Ribault specifically mentions a belt 

 of red leather seen by him among the same Indians, the Timucua, and 

 it is probable that the figures do not accurately represent native 

 usages. (French, 1875, p. 170; Le Moyne, 1875, passim; Swanton, 

 1922, p. 346.) As already noted, the Southeastern Indians also made 

 belts out of bison and opossum hair often ornamented with beads. 



Two garments were worn on the upper part of the body, a shirt 

 and a blanket, but either they merged into each other or our descrip- 

 tions lack clarity, so that it is often difficult to tell with which we have 

 to deal. Spanish chroniclers speak of the native garments of this 

 class as shawls or mantles, though sometimes as blankets, but the words 

 are loosely employed. The shawls of native weave are usually said to 

 have been worn by women, but Elvas tells us that the men wore "only 

 one over the shoulder" leaving "the right arm uncovered in the man- 

 ner and custom of gypsies" (Robertson, 1933, p. 76), and large white 

 cloaks of the same material were worn by 60 old men who accom- 

 panied the Taensa chief in 1682 (French, 1846, pp. 61-62; Swanton, 

 1911, p. 260). Garcilaso says of the "marten" (muskrat) garment 

 worn "in the place of a cloak," 



they wear mantles clasped at the throat which reach half-way down the leg; 

 they are of extremely fine marten skins which give off the odor of musk. . . . 

 They also make them of small skins of various animals, such as several kinds 

 of cat, fallow deer, red deer, bears, lions, and of skins of cattle [buffalo]. These 

 hides they dress lo such an extreme of perfection that the skin of a cow or 

 a bear, with the hair on it, they prepare in a manner that leaves it so pliant 

 and soft that it can be worn as a cloak, and it serves them for bed-covering at 

 night. (Bartram, 1792, p. 17.) 



Shorter cloaks were also made of muskrat skin, as appears from the 

 "robe of marten-skins, of the form and size of a woman's shawl" in 

 which the chief of Coga came out to greet De Soto (Robertson, 1933, 

 p. 115). The Spanish adventurers speak of garments of this type 

 in several places. After Narvaez and his companions had put to sea 

 in west Florida, they voyaged westward until they came to an Indian 

 town in the neighborhood of what is now Pensacola Bay. There they 

 were at first received hospitably, but, when the Indians believed they 

 were off their guard, they were suddenly attacked. The Indian chief 

 was among the white men at that time and was seized by them, but 



