Sometimes the copper plates were highly ornamented and cut or trimmed. Fig. 610 is thus described by Professor Mills:—
“The plate shown in this figure is perhaps the heaviest and smoothest of all the plates taken from Seip Mound. The scroll pattern cut upon one side of the plate represents the first specimen of the kind taken from the mounds of Ohio, as far as known. The plate was wrapped in leather when it was placed in the grave, and portions still adhere to the plate, as shown in the cut.”
Of the interesting pendants in sheet-copper, Fig. 617, exhumed from a mound in Moundville, Alabama, Mr. Moore has to say:—
“The upper part of the pendant has parts excised to form a six-pointed star within a circle. On the body of the star, repoussé, is a symbol to which we shall revert later. Below is an excised triangle; beneath which is part of an arm encircled by a string of beads and an extended hand bearing on it the open eye, all repoussé.”
The decayed cloth, the fragments of skins and the curious, fine silt, usually about a handful, lying around copper objects, indicate that they were at one time carefully wrapped up. If we had preserved to us some of these wrappings, not a little light might be shed on the use of the more highly developed copper problematical forms in the United States.
I am indebted to the directors of the Milwaukee Public Museum for making illustrations of the finest copper objects in their collections: Figs. 574, 579, 582–89, 595, 597, 599, 602, 605, 613.
CHAPTER XXXI
TEXTILE FABRICS
It would be comparatively easy for one to write a lengthy chapter upon textile fabrics. But because of the limited space now at my disposal and for the further reason that “The Stone Age” is purposely restricted chiefly to descriptions of art in stone rather than in fabrics, this chapter must necessarily be brief.
It is unfortunate that almost none of the fabrics of prehistoric times, made use of by the natives of that period, are in existence to-day, and aside from pieces of mats and here and there a bit of cloth from the dry caves of Kentucky and the Ozark Mountains, there is nothing in our museums to give a clue as to the nature and material of the garments, robes, blankets, etc. We are dependent chiefly on history for our knowledge of the use of textile fabrics.
But in the Southwest the aridity of the climate, together with the fact that the walls of the cliff-houses kept out the occasional rains, and that the sands of the desert drifting over the ruined pueblos, worked in harmony to preserve a goodly number of fragments of textile fabrics. Some of these are in the American Museum, New York City, others in Washington, Denver, and Philadelphia museums. All are of great interest and were made use of by stone-age man.