508 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



HEAD BANDS 



(See plates) 



The nearest approach to a hat was the head band, sometimes con- 

 nected with a netting so as to form a kind of cap, though in general 

 Adair's words regarding the Chickasaw to the effect that they always 

 went bareheaded were true of all the tribes of the Southeast (Adair, 

 1775, p. 9). Speaking of these Indians generally, Garcilaso says: 



For a headdress they wear a thick skein of thread in whatever color they desire 

 which they wind about their heads and tie the ends over the forehead in two 

 half-knots, so that one end hangs down over either temple as far as the ears. 

 (Garcilaso, 1723, pp. 17-18.) 



When Tascalusa met De Soto, Kanjel tells us that his head was "cov- 

 ered by a kind of coif like the almaizal, so that his headdress was 

 like a Moor's which gave him an aspect of authority" (Bourne, 1904, 

 vol. 2, p. 120) . This is the first time that the headdress of an Indian of 

 this section was compared to an oriental turban ; the resemblance be- 

 came much more striking when European handkerchiefs and other 

 textiles took the place of the native materials. 



The commonest type of head band worn in early times was orna- 

 mented with feathers. Thus Elvas tells us that the chief of Coga 

 came out to meet the Spaniards in 1540 wearing "a crown of feathers" 

 (Robertson, 1933, p. 115). Although too much reliance cannot be 

 placed in Le Moyne's illustrations, there seems to have been some 

 ground for the types of headdress depicted. We find some of his sub- 

 jects with their heads covered with skins, the head of the animal being 

 made to fit over the head of the wearer. Others have a row of short 

 feathers around the entire crown of the head, and still others single 

 tufts of feathers in front. A ridge of hair left above the forehead 

 prevents us from telling whether these feathers are fastened together 

 by a band running all of the way around, but such was probably the 

 case. Finally, we observe a head band showing a succession of short 

 points as if it were a kind of crown. This is rather too suggestive of 

 European crowns, and yet in later times, at all events, bands of this 

 pattern, hammered out of silver, were much in use, I myself having 

 seen one that belonged to an Alabama Indian living in Louisiana. 

 It is to be observed that the illustrations indicate most of these head 

 bands to have been worn by leading men, the common men exhibiting 

 nothing of the sort. 



In the Algonquian tidewater country and the Siouan hinterland, 

 we meet head bands of a different type. According to Hariot, the 

 women of Secotan wore "wreathes" about their head which were not 

 in vogue among the women of some other towns, such as Dasemonque- 

 peuc. His illustration shows that he means by these articles of ap- 

 parel not wreaths of flowers, as one might suppose, but head bands 



