The presence of these unworked materials makes it probable that the individual burned was a female, for the distaff and the loom have been and are universal emblems of the practical enslavement of that sex.
A small but very instructive group of burial fabrics is preserved in the National Museum. These specimens were found with a desiccated body in 1877 in a cave 8 miles from Mammoth cave, Kentucky. They consist of a number of bags and other articles woven in the usual styles of bast and hemp. Nearly all of the articles are worn or fragmentary, but the fiber is wonderfully preserved and the original colors are as fresh as if the burial had taken place but yesterday. There are three wide-mouthed, shallow bags, resembling the one from Tennessee illustrated in plate V. The largest is 34 inches long when closed, and 15 inches deep. Both web and woof are of bast. There is a border of open work bound by a plaited band as seen in figure 8, and the manner of weaving is identical with that shown in that figure. The second bag is 22 inches long and 16 deep. The web is of bast, the woof of hemp. The smaller specimen is 14 by 9 inches and is made exclusively of hemp, and is thus much more pliable than the others. The small remnant of a larger bag shows a web of heavy, plaited bast strands resembling the specimen impressed on pottery and shown in a, plate IX. Besides these pieces there is a bit of heavy, compactly woven stuff, resembling the broad part of a sling, which shows traces of a geometric pattern, and a piece of flattish rope 12 feet long and 12 inches broad plaited very neatly of hempen twine.
Among a number of cave relics from Kentucky donated to the Museum by Mr. Francis Klett, are some textile articles. Among these is a sandal or moccasin woven or plaited very neatly of bast. It is shown in figure 9. Prof. F. W. Putnam and other explorers of these caves have obtained numerous textile articles of interest.
| [BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY] | THIRTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. V |
FRAYED BAG AND SKEINS OF HEMP FIBER.
CHARRED REMAINS OF FABRICS FROM MOUNDS.
That the well-preserved fabrics just illustrated represent fairly the textile work of the mound-builders is practically demonstrated by the evidence furnished by the mounds themselves. From hundreds of sources come the same story; and it is not necessary here to enter into any elaborate discussion of the subject or to multiply illustrations. I present in plates VI and VII specimens of mound fabrics which, since they were burned with the dead, undoubtedly formed part of the clothing of the living or were wrappings of articles deposited with the bodies. These coarse cloths may be considered as fairly representing the weaving of the mound-builders. There are among them some finer examples of weaving than those obtained from the caves and shelters of Tennessee and Kentucky, but there is nothing specifically different in material or methods of combination, and there is nothing whatever to suggest a higher stage of culture than that of the historic Indian.
