e 2, copied from Lafitau, serves to
indicate the common practice.

The omnipresent sweat-house of the aborigines is thus described by
Smith:

Sometimes they are troubled with dropsies, swellings, aches,
and such like diseases; for cure whereof they build a Stone
in the forme of a Doue-house with mats, so close that a few
coales therein covered with a pot, will make the patient
sweat extreamely.[18]

Bartram, speaking of the Seminoles, states that the wide steps leading
up to the canopied platform of the council house are "covered with
carpets or mats, curiously woven of split canes dyed of various
colours."[19]

The use of mats in the mound country in very early times is described by
Joutel as follows:

Their moveables are some bullocks' hides and goat skins well
cured, some mats close wove, wherewith they adorn their huts,
and some earthen vessels which they are very skilful at
making, and wherein they boil their flesh or roots, or
sagamise, which, as has been said, is their pottage. They
have also some small baskets made of canes, serving to put in
their fruit and other provisions. Their beds are made of
canes, raised 2 or 3 feet above the ground, handsomely fitted
with mats and bullocks' hides, or goat skins well cured,
which serve them for feather beds, or quilts and blankets;
and those beds are parted one from another by mats hung
up.[20]

The mats so much used for beds and carpets and for the covering of
shelters, houses, etc., were probably made of pliable materials such as
rushes. De la Potherie illustrates their use as beds,[21] one end of the
mat being rolled up for a pillow as shown in figure 3.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Use of mat in sleeping (after De la Potherie).]

The sizes of mats were greatly varied; the smallest were sufficient for
seating only a single person, but the largest were many yards in length,
the width being restricted to a few feet by the conditions of
construction.

Mats were woven in two or more styles. Where the strands or parts were
uniform in size and rigidity they were simply interlaced, but when one
strong or rigid series was to be kept in place by a pliable series, the
latter were twisted about the former at the intersections as in ordinary
twined weaving. The heavy series of strands or parts were held together
side by side by the intertwined strands placed far apart, a common
practice yet among native