[Illustration: Fig. 101.--Plaiting of a sandal, Kentucky cave.]

The fiber has the appearance of bast and is plaited in untwisted
strands, after the manner shown in the illustration. Professor Putman
describes a number of cast-off sandals from Salt Cave, Kentucky, as
"neatly made of finely braided and twisted leaves of rushes."[5]

[Footnote 5: Putnam, F. W. Eighth Annual Report of the Peabody
Museum, p. 49.]

Fig. 102 illustrates a somewhat similar method of plaiting practiced by
the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland, from one of Keller's figures.[6]

[Illustration: Fig. 102.--Braiding done by the Lake-Dwellers.]

[Footnote 6: Keller, Dr. F. Lake Dwellers. Fig. 3; Pl. CXXXVI.]


SIXTH GROUP.

The art of making nets of spun and twisted cords seems to have been
practiced by many of the ancient peoples of America. Beautiful examples
have been found in the _huacas_ of the Incas and in the tombs of the
Aztecs. They were used by the prehistoric tribes of California and the
ancient inhabitants of Alaska. Nets were in use by the Indians of
Florida and Virginia at the time of the discovery, and the ancient
pottery of the Atlantic States has preserved impressions of a number
of varieties. It is possible that some of these impressions may be from
European nets, but we have plentiful historical proof that nets of hemp
were in use by the natives, and as all of this pottery is very old it is