Ceremonial clothing such as headdresses, mantles, complex twined bags and baskets have been recovered from elite mound burials in Spiro, Oklahoma and a few other items have been found at places such as places such as Etowah but little had been recovered from village sites until Wickliffe. Evidence comes nettle and milkweed. The woody stems are harvested in the fall and inside are polymers are being twisted together to make twelve and from there there is fabricated by make twained textiles from a variety of plants. The increased number of complex structural trends paralleled the social complexity deduced from Mississippian settlement configurations (Penelope Ballad Drooker) Meaning that the more textile construction techniques are there and the more complex they become, it seems to be a reflection of the increasing complexities in everyday life.
Three-dimensional objects such as bags and pouches are not extremely limited in quantity of remaining textile material to investigate, however large-sized Mississippian textiles like those earlier periods, tend to come in rectangular forms used by skirts, mantles, and blankets. There is a lot more than this is a task relegated to one gender or any both participated. but cultures and societies came and disappeared, often without explanation - types of sophisticated woven textiles were worn right up through the contact period.
Moravian Missionary, David Zeisburger left journals with details of twined clothing being worn only a generation before. Hovey Lake archaeological site in extreme southwest Indiana is a site that is was populated from about 1400 to 1700 with remnants of the Angel Mound people. The interpretation that Cheryl Ann Munson has given of Hovey Lake concerning this issue is stated very clearly on the Hove Lake website, "Villagers wove a variety of fabric items such as blankets, wraps, skirts, and bags, using yarns spun from plant fibers.
There are few descriptions of this type of clothing being worn by native people after contact then again, the lack of evidence to concretely state that the use of plant fibers continued well into the 17th century. being made by by artist John White in 16th century Virginia of a "Religious Man" depicted as wearing a short twined cloak covering the left arm while leaving the right arm exposed. There is substantial evidence to strongly suggest that the basic pre and proto-contact garment worn by females was a wraparound skirt. This is to knee length and this garment was then transferred to trade cloth by the mid-18 th century. Some resources mention native fabric skirts for Virginia and North Carolina said to made of "silk grass with a bottom fringe."
These "styles" continued into the 18th century when wool trade cloth, Men seem to have worn mantles as a single tunic like garment or sometimes in combination with or with a warming mantles in combination with a skirt. By the mid - 18th century Thomas Davies began presented Huron and other Great Lakes people and consistently put females in a type of trade cloth skirt and wool leggings. Shirts seem to be highly valued in Cotton from India and the Middle East Made in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes. It ranked higher than trade rifles in lists of goods in high demand. Shirts were worn over skirts and Silk ribbons in a variety of colors and sizes were in great demand as well. Many of the early examples the author has has Along with this came the use of trade silver ear rings, ear wheels, in early years, cone and ball, triangular pieces used in both noses and ears, silver crosses, and brooches from tiny button size to ring brooches placed in multiple rows and in some situations geometrical effecting design patterns on both shirts and skirts.
The use of silver brooches on silk scarves and blankets continued to increase towards the end of the 18th century. Also a change in the way silk ribbons He used the cake in the very late part of the 18th century and was depicted extensively in the Wabash Valley by English painter, George Winter. He spent 1838-1839 with the Miami and Potawatomi Indians of Central and Northern Indiana. His dozens of portraits giving insight to the lives and cultures of the last days days of these extraordinary people before forced removals by the US government altered their lives and traditions forever. Silk turbans and shoulder length hair on the men became quiet the norm. in the 18th century we see men with shaven heads, scalp locks, gastoweh or hair roach attached to the scalblock. Men in the 18th century seem to have slit their ears and pierced them to accommodate an extra outer row of ear rings, wampum or other ornamentation.
Fingerwoven sashes or belts were worn by both men and women but now made from wider band or wing flap where the two halves of the cloth were stitched together and embellished with silk ribbonwork applique. than plant fibers. Moccasins replaced fiber sandals and were mostly constructed. They had wing flaps, were of wing flaps, were of center seam construction and often embellished with porcupine quillwork on the flaps and sometimes down the center seam. White glass beads sometimes were sewn to the edges of the flaps so offering a finished look. By the 1830 's silk Ribbonwork dominated the flaps of Miami and Potwatomi moccasins in the central region of the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley as well as among Potawatomi and Menominee of Wisconsin. Extensive use of bead The museum collections in Canada, Chicago, Grand Rapids and other places support this evidence.
As George Winter noted, these clothes with fancy ribbons of silk and men 's frock coats, ladies silk parasols and silk shawls were worn on a regular basis and not just for funerals or ceremonies. Winter stayed in the log cabin belonging to captive Frances Slocum and made numerous observations in his journals to this effect.
Kakima Burnett, a Potawatomi woman who was wasar influenced by Catholic nuns and missionaries that frequented the Potawatomi villages in southern western Michigan when the Burnets established a trading operation in 1780 Kikima was the daughter of Chief Aniquiba and sister of Topenebee, principal chief of the Potawatomi in the southwestern Michigan. They were married by a Catholic priest in Detroit. Their sons were educated in Detroit by Catholic nuns. One of the sons came to the Fort Wayne, Indiana area and was associated with Issac McCoy, a missionary among the Indians. Kakima came to Indiana after her husband 's death sometime around the end of the War of 1812. With all of the influence of "Black Robes" Kakima and other women of her same background and culture began emulating the nuns by wearing large collars on their shirts. By George Winter depicts many of the Potawtomi and Miami women, some people were not unnecessarily of Catholic faith, wearing the large collar blouses or shirts. The earliest known figure illustration of a woman wearing a caped blouse in the Detroit area around 1814. Another early depiction clearly shows a Seneca woman of western New York wearing one as she teachers young Iroquois children in a frame longhouse.
The shorter styles may be those that were worn by the unmarried ladies after researching countless garments of this period, there seemed to be two decidedly different the types of caped blouse. More the research, fuller styles with a larger center opening seem to be worn by married women who would be carrying children, so making it easier to nurse through the larger neck opening. More research on this is still being done.
By the end of the 1830 's and 1840' s thousands of these central Wabash and Ohio Valley Natives were forced to leave their homes and go west to Kansas and then to Oklahoma. The ribbon skirts, the caped blouses and the There are reflections of this pre-removal era in modern powwow wow & # 39; s many many cross-cultural adaptations have been made since then .
There are some depot era. There are some depiction era. There are some depot era. There are some Potawatomi items in the Chicago Field Museum collections. 18th and 19th century quillwork bags, moccasins, finger woven sashes and knife sheaths are scattered throughout Europe, frequently taken as effects of war or gifts during trade or treaty negotiations in the 18th and 19th centuries by military officers. Others were sold to collectors in New York and California.
Many items from a number of Great Lakes and Ohio Valley tribes are in the back rooms in the Mall in Washington DC Formerly many of those items were located in the Heye Foundation in the Bronx, New York where they were There are several books, mostly out of print, including "Bou Jou Nee Jee"; "Spirit Sings Collection" and "Patterns of Power, the McMichael Canadian Collection" that are published based on on the 1970 & # 39; s and 1980 & # 39; s. They have a fairly large selection of items that have been studied intentionally by historians and reenactors wishing to recreate the clothing and quillwork, finger weaving and trade silver and be as accurate and authentic as possible when possible talking to the public and working with students.
