From Du Pratz we have the following:
The women make also designs in embroidery with the skin of the porcupine; they remove for this purpose the skin of this animal, which is white and black; they split it very fine to use as embroidery thread, dye a part of the white skin a red color, another part yellow, and a third part is left white; they usually work on black skin, and dye the black a reddish brown; but if they work on bark, the black [threads] remain the same. Their designs are very similar to some of those found in Gothic architecture; they are composed of straight lines which form right angles at their conjunction, which is commonly called the corner of a square. They also work similar designs on mantles and coverings which they make with the bark of the mulberry tree.[49]
John Smith testifies to the same practices in Virginia as shown in the following lines:
For their apparell, they are sometimes covered with the skinnes of wilde beasts, which in Winter are dressed with the hayre, but in Sommer without. The better sort use large mantels of Deare skins, not much differing in fashion from the Irish mantels. Some imbrodered with white beads, some with Copper, other painted after their manner. * * * We haue seene some use mantels made of Turky feathers, so prettily wrought and woven with threads that nothing could be discerned but the feathers.[50]
[26] Travels in North America, Peter Kalm. English translation, London, 1771, vol. II, pp. 131, 132.
[27] Ibid., pp. 148-149.
[28] Hist. de l'Amérique, Sept., vol. III, p. 34.
[29] Hist. Virginia. Richmond, 1819, pp. 132-133.
[30] History of the American Indians. London, 1775, pp. 422, 423.
[31] Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida as told by a Knight of Elvas. Translated by Buckingham Smith. New York, 1866, p. 52.