within the last few years textile fabrics have hardly been
recognized as having a place among the materials to be utilized in the
discussion of North American archeology. Recent studies of the art of
the mound-building tribes have, however, served to demonstrate their
importance, and the evidence now furnished by this art can be placed
alongside of that of arts in clay, stone, and metal, as a factor in
determining the culture status of the prehistoric peoples and in
defining their relations to the historic Indians. This change is due to
the more careful investigations of recent times, to the utilization of
new lines of archeologic research, and to the better knowledge of the
character and scope of historic and modern native art. A comparison of
the textiles obtained from ancient mounds and graves with the work of
living tribes has demonstrated their practical identity in materials, in
processes of manufacture, and in articles produced. Thus another
important link is added to the chain that binds together the ancient and
the modern tribes.

DEFINITION OF THE ART.

The textile art dates back to the very inception of culture, and its
practice is next to universal among living peoples. In very early stages
of culture progress it embraced the stems of numerous branches of
industry afterward differentiated through the utilization of other
materials or through the employment of distinct systems of construction.
At all periods of cultural development it has been a most indispensable
art, and with some peoples it has reached a marvelous perfection, both
technically and esthetically.

Woven fabrics include all those products of art in which the elements or
parts employed in construction are more or less filamental, and are
combined by methods conditioned chiefly by their flexibility. The
processes employed are known by such terms as wattling, interlacing,
plaiting, netting, weaving, sewing, and embroidering.

MATERIALS AND PROCESSES.

Viewing the entire textile field, we find that the range of products is
extremely wide. On the one hand there is the rude interlacing of
branches, vines, roots, and canes in constructing houses, weirs, cages,
rafts, bridges, and the like, and on the other, the spinning of threads
of almost microscopic fineness and the weaving of textures of marvelous
delicacy and beauty.

The more cultured peoples of Central America and South America had
accomplished wonders in the use of the loom and th