=Work in Skins=: Most of the clothing worn by the Wampanoags was
made from the skins of animals. Deerskin was an excellent material
for clothing, since it was tough but thin enough to be made pliable,
was large enough to be used with a minimum of piecing, and was
readily available in the environment. Moose hide was used for similar
purposes, but being heavier it was perhaps more popular for making
shoes.[136]
Deerskin was scraped to remove the flesh, and the tanning process
involved working oil into the hide to make it soft and also resistant
to water.[137] Thus prepared, the skin used in a pair of leggings
could stand to be gotten wet, rung out, hung up and dried by the
fire without being harmed by the experience.[138] When a deer was
killed during the winter, the thick coat of hair was usually left
on the hide.[139] Moose skins were de-haired as a matter of course,
according to Morton.[140] Deer and moose skins with the hair removed
were decorated by painting or by embroidery.[141] To be a proper skin
for wearing, a deerskin had to have the tail left on.[142]
The skins of other game were also used as clothing. Bear, otter,
raccoon, beaver, fox and cat skins are mentioned as having been used,
although the particulars of their preparation are not recorded.[143]
Sometimes the skins of animals not available in the immediate
vicinity were traded for from neighboring tribes.[144] The skins of
all these animals, including deer, were used also for bedding.[145]
Leather was used in the manufacture of bags for carrying fire
lighting equipment, tobacco, and parched corn meal. The latter type
is described as being long and narrow and carried either slung on the
back or tied around the waist.[146]
Contemporary observers do not mention any further uses of leather by
the Wampanoags. Among several groups of Indians, such as those who
lived by hunting on the Great Plains, leather served not only for
clothing, but as the only material available for housing and cordage.
Living as they did in the woodlands, the Wampanoags had available
a variety of suitable plant material which they used for various
kinds of basketry and cordage that served the multitude of purposes
served by leather in other regions. Thus among the Wampanoags leather
might have been used as the lashings to hold the framing of houses
together, or plant fiber might have served this purpose, or both.
Such alternatives were available, but it is not known exactly what
use the Wampanoags made of them.
=Cordage, Netting, Basketry=: The Wampanoags used the stems and
fibers of several plants for containers, house coverings, nets,
clothing, etc.[147] Among the plants used were: bulrushes, bent
grass (perhaps also other types of grasses), maize husks, “silk
grass”, wild hemp (also called Indian hemp and dogbane—_Apocynum
cannabenum_), flag leaves, basswood fiber, and the bast of other
trees with fine inner bark, such as the linden and slippery elm.[148]
Most cordage was made from wild hemp. Basically, the manufacture of
cordage consisted of removing the long fibers from the stems of the
plant and joining these by twisting and braiding until the desired
thickness and length of cord was obtained. The Indians appeared
quite skillful in this craft: “... their cordage is so even, soft,
and smooth, that it looks more like silke than hempe....”[149] Wild
hemp cordage was used in several ways. It was used to make fishing
lines.[150] It was also used for tying hooks onto these lines.[151]
Hemp cordage was looped into fishnets.[152] One of these, used for
sturgeon, is described as being 30 to 40 feet in length.[153] Large
storage bags were made out of this material, in a weaving technique
known as twining. These were flat and rectangular in shape; their
capacity was five or six bushels. They were used for storing food
both in the underground pits and inside the houses.[154] Similar bags
were also made out of bast fiber.[155]
Hemp is mentioned as having been used in making baskets, where it
probably served as weft strands.[156] Hemp cordage was also used to
sew together a certain kind of house covering mat.[157] And it was
used, along with grasses for woven capes.[158] Mantles were also
woven out of turkey feathers, or the feathers of other birds, and
cordage.[159] The feathers were probably twisted in among the hemp
strands.[160] Such weaving was done without looms.
Matting was produced by two basic techniques, by sewing or by weaving
the component elements together. In sewn mats, flag leaves were sewed
together with wild hemp thread, using a bone needle.[161] Woven mats
were plaited from bulrushes.[162] These latter were used to line the
interior of the house, to sit upon, and for spreading out food to
dry.[163] Matting was an item that came in for extensive use in the
daily lives of the Wampanoags. Besides being a building material, it
was used to line storage pits; it also lined or covered their graves.
Basketry was another important item made by the Wampanoags, although
their use of basketry was not as extensive as in certain other North
American Indian groups. Basketry everywhere serves what is basically
a container function, and among the Wampanoags there were available
pottery, birch bark boxes, pouches of leather, wooden dishes, and
later the metal pots and kettles brought by Europeans—all of which
could carry out the job of holding something.
Baskets were made in a number of sizes and shapes, of several
different materials, and of varying fineness depending upon the
purpose to be served.[164] There were two techniques for weaving
baskets, twining and plaiting, though there were probably enough
variations upon these basic techniques that not all baskets looked
alike to the casual observer. Twined basketry was the more common
type at the time that the Europeans arrived in New England. The
baskets of “Hempe and Rushes” that Wood describes were probably made
by this technique.[165] The manufacture of twined basketry involves
wrapping a horizontal weft element, the hemp in this case, around
what is usually a more rigid warp, the bulrushes. The basketry
made by the plaited technique is what is meant by the term “splint
basketry”. In this case, both warp and weft are equally rigid
“splints” and are combined by placing each alternately over the other
so that, in the most basic pattern, a checkerboard effect results.
Basketry made by this technique became more popular during the
historic period, and eventually this was the only type made by the
Indians in the New England area. At the time New England was being
colonized, the main use of splint basketry was in the processing of
corn. Square sieves for sifting corn meal were made by the plaiting
technique, with varying grades of mesh to sort out ground and hulled
corn for various uses.[166] Collecting baskets for harvesting corn
were also made by this technique. The basket was worn strapped to the
back, secured by a strap across the chest. A larger version of the
basket stood at the edge of the field, for transporting the harvested
ears of corn back to the house.[167]
Willoughby gives this description of obtaining and processing the
materials for splint baskets:
... small ash, white oak, or other suitable trees, were cut in the
spring. The logs were sometimes soaked in water, although this
was not always necessary. They were then peeled and beaten with
wooden mauls until the annual growth layers were separated one from
another. These were split into various widths and assorted, strips
of uniform size being bound together in bunches or coils.[168]
Baskets were also used to carry the parched corn meal of a traveler
(in place of the deerskin pouch).[169] Large baskets, an alternative
to bags of hemp, were used to store food in the underground storage
pits.[170] One kind of arrow quiver was made of basketry.[171] When
moving from place to place during the year, basketry and soft woven
bags seem likely to have been the containers in which the Wampanoags
carried their baggage.[172]
Very few decorated baskets are known to have survived from this
period. The reports of early observers note that baskets were
decorated in various colors.[173] A basket seen by the Pilgrims is
described as being “... curiously wrought in black and white in
pretty works....”[174] But from such scant information it is possible
to generalize about decorative style.[175]