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For the net take note of the needle and the gauge, you’ll probably have to make both, the gauge is simple the neelde maybe not, anyway the width of the holes in the net should be similar to the ratio of the feathers used, plan or arrange the feathers out on a paper for the width and depth etc, and that should give you the width of the gauge.
After I posted the 2 previous items I have found the following article…
1994 Spring
Native Americans in Arkansas
PAGE 7
« Back to 1994 Spring Issue Articles
Cherokee Women Had Important Influence in Daily Life of Tribe
ARKANSAS TERRITORY — As Cherokee children of the 1820s sit around the wood stoves in the kitchens of their farmhouses on the Cherokee Reservation between the White and Arkansas rivers, they learn the history of their tribe. Their mothers tell them how important women and children were to the tribe in the old days when all the tribe lived east of the Mississippi River.
In the 1500s, the Spanish explorers Hernando de Soto and Juan Pardo, met women chiefs with “considerable power among the southeastern Indians. Cherokee beloved women” were people of influence; like Nancy Ward, who spoke in council meetings and conducted negotiations.
The Cherokees were a matrilineal tribe, which means daughters could inherit things from their mothers. So women could own property separately from their husbands, such as a house that a daughter inherited from her mother.
The matrilineal clans owned the agricultural fields they farmed, and women often sold food and other goods to the European explorers and settlers.
Work among the Cherokees was divided between women and men. The work year was divided into two seasons — the warm and the cold. During the warm season, women grew food plants in the kitchen gardens near their houses and grew corn in the larger agricultural fields. Men fished and did some hunting during the warm season. The cold season was the main times for men to hunt, while the women collected wild foods and firewood.
Besides growing the food plants, women ran the household, cooked, and made baskets and pottery. They ground corn into meal in large wooden pestles or bowls, by pounding it with a mortar.
They also cured animal skins, after the men had dressed the skins in a preliminary way. The women often smoked the hides and sometimes used natural dyes to color them yellow, red, green, blue, or black. The women then sewed the skins into clothing, using an awl and sinew like a needle and thread.
Cloth for clothing was also made by the women. They wove, twined, and plaited plant and animal fibers with their fingers into pouches and sashes. On an upright loom ‘with suspended threads they Wove capes, called mantles, of buffalo, rabbit, or opossum hair or the fiber from plants such as nettle, hemp, mulberry, or cane.
Sometimes they made a very light and warm cape by first weaving a net cloth, then attaching to the net small turkey, swan, or duck feathers.
Children helped the women collect wild vegetables, berries, fruits, nuts, and seeds. There were some wild foods available every season of the year. Little girls also helped with housework, tended the gardens, and learned to make pottery and baskets.
Boys learned to hunt by going hunting with the men. Boys liked to compete in bow-and-arrow shooting contests and in foot races. They learned to play “chunkey,” a game based on throwing spears at a rolling, wheel-shaped stone. When they were older, they played a ball game that was an important part of town life.
Thank you Tom! Maybe this Sunday I can get down to Goodwill. Glenn will be watching the ball game.
At fabric stores and Wal-mart they have a fabric called Tulle. It is a very fine guage nylon netting, generally used for wedding gowns & veils, sachets, the little pouches of rice thrown at weddings. I would double it though to make it stronger, to hold the weight of the feathers, and it comes in different colors. It is very inexpensive. Tom laying it out first as to how you would want it is a very good idea. Well, gotta’ go for now. Love & Light & Thanks Again! Lynella.
Tom,
Thank you for adding that last post. I just read it. I sure would like to figure out how to spin plant fibers into a weavable material. I’ll have to check around on that. That is very interesting. I found something the other night on-line about the different things that were used as dyes. I’ll have to see if I can find that and post the link at least.:)
here is a very interesating article and has some nice information that will apply to several threads.
http//ethnohistory.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/52/4/727.pdf
Hi Lynella, I didn’t know you beaded. So do I. I’m so sorry that you coudn’t find the right velvet. I love beading on velvet it is sooooo soft and comforting. Have you tried looking online for some? I know that I don’t usually buy stuff online because of security reasons with credit cards etc. But what I do is usually get their physical address and call and then send them a check or give the info over the phone.
I would love to see your mocs when you get done if you have a way of taking a picture. 🙂
Barb,
Hey! Thank you! Yes, I bead, but not as much or as good as you do! I have so many hobbies that Beading isn’t always on the top of my list. I was thinking about checking on-line, but I have to match the velvet to one of three specific colors of skin. So, it’s been being a pain! It’s really good to hear from you! Love & Light, Lynella.
Lynella
Thank you for your kind words about my beadwork.
Oh yea. I totally understand about trying to match things up. I do that with my beads all the time. I go buy some, get them home and find they don’t match like I want them to. So, now I take them with me to see what goes with the color I have picked.
One of my fav things to do is bead on velvet. I don’t usually do a lot of applique, but when I do, I love to do it on velvet. The velvet is so soft and lucious and kind of comforting in soft sort of way. It’s like getting a hug for your hands.
I hope you find the right one for your mocs. I know they’ll be absolutely beautiful when you finish.
Dovelady,
I have been googling shells of the East Coast and found a couple I like. I was looking up different kinds of shells and found myself looking at beads. I found a lot of cool history and want to post a link or two here for Tom and All.
A photo of “Moctezuma’s feathered claok”
http://www.thebeadsite.com/FRO-SPI.htm
hopefully that works. If not, I’ll try it again tomorrow. This is a whole essay on “The Spanish Impact on Traditional Beading in America.”
Next; http://www.thebeadsite.com/bbi-jda.htm
It’s another Essay.
http://www.thebeadsite.com/MG9-2-07.htm I have been there and never saw this!
http://www.thebeadsite.com/CBR-CPO.html “Other Research Projects” Scroll down, theres one on Early Calonial.
http://www.thebeadsite.com/mg101-01.html “America’s Oldest Beads.”
I was on here for 2 hours! Love & Light, Lynella.
Thanks for the links. I went to the site and read some, but will have to read the rest later as I have some things I have to get done. But this one link..didn’t work ..What was it?
http://www.thebeadsite.com/MG9-2-07.htm I have been there and never saw this!
I have been to Peter’s site a long time ago, but have never taken the time to really read it. I know he was hailed as one of the best experts in the field. Unfortunately he passed a way a while back. But he left a great body of work behind him.
I can imagine that it took hours or even days to make some of those beads early beads.
I googled ‘feather mantle’ and got mostly beautiful Hawaiian capes. Then I googled ‘feather cape’ and haven’t looked at all of them yet, but I did see this one on this site. It is obviously contemporary, but it might give some people some ideas about making one. This one is done on hide and looks like the feathers are individually attached.
https://www.blackfeetnationstore.com/apparel.html
I’m off to see if I can find any more.
Re: netting for feather cape. What about the kind of netted cloth that they used to make ‘muscle shirts’ out of . They were a kind of netted cloth, hmm. You see it in sporting stuff all the time. It us sometimes used for pockets or even lining. If you have a large fabric store they may carry it.
Do you know what I mean? I don’t know what it is called though.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~nathist/Site/mesk.html
This is another site with a small cape. It also has some other great things to look at.
Dovelady,
Thank you for those links. I’ll have to check them out. The one of mine above that didn’t work, darn-it, is a Wampum Belt at the Denver Museum of Natural History. The thing is I think it’s from Jamestown, but I’m not possetive on that. The site led me there because I saw there was stuff from Jamestown, so clicked on it and this was among those things. Its beautiful purple Wampum.
Now I’ll go check out your links on those capes & mantles. Thank you. Lynella.
Found a picture of a feather cloak made by Mollie Adams, a Mattaponi Indian, in the 1940’s. I don’t know how to put this on to the forum, but the picture is located in a book called The Southeastern Indians by Chales Hudson, on page 268. The cloak looks like its mostly made of wild turkey feathers.
Also there is a picture of a Cherokee wild turkey feather cloak on page 97 of America’s Fasinating Indian Heritage by Reader’s Digest. These books belong to a friend of mine and she will attempt to try and post these pictures when she can. She is also working on a feather cape.
Shad
Of course they would have know how to weave! It’s like saying they wouldn’t have known how to harvest. hmpt.
I know (what little I can tell you, I could pass you on to folks up here.) that further north it is thought that folks wove cedar for clothes etc. problem is, lots of stuff decomposes.
Anyways, more to stuff/clothes people made than just leather, furs and feathers. (although that is all nice).
Re weaving, they had rugs, stuff made from cattails, other things/clothing.
I love it when “experts” feel they know everything. how often do people go to “source”? (going to source, lead me to where I am a few years later, finding out about myself. (wondering since I was a kid) things can come full circle.)
Any thing (which I humbly say is a LITTLE) I can help with on certain things that would have been done kept in longhouses, etc. skills I would be happy to share. ( I used to work as an interpreter at a pre “contact” village up here in Ontario, tastefully done. I learned different skills etc.)
My 2 cents.
Take care,
D
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The feather capes were supposedly still worn up until 1850 in the southeast, really late considereing what has been printed or is known about them, recently a friend of mine had told me that a mutual friend knew peole (years ago) who remembered them being made.
These people are amongst my trusted friends and I’ll call them and ask what it is they were told.
There is several types of construction mentioned and I’ll post what friends tell me after I get thier okay to post it here.
also I would suggest that anyone interested in feathers look at what is called a “Royal palm ” turkey, snow white feathers with jet black tips!. Once trimmed they would look like small eagle feathers.
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