Iroquois clothes
by James Lew
I am impressed that the Iroquois could make so many clothes out of so little materials. They used everything from deer brain to porcupine quills. Learn more by continuing to read.
How Clothes Were Made
First Iroquois men would hunt the deer, then the women would take over. They would skin the deer then the women would cure the skin. Then the women would scrap off the hair on a rack with bone tools. Then they would wash the hide in boiling water, and hard wood ash, this would have lye in it. Then the women would take the brain, liver and fat and boiled it into the skin, that would make the skin soft. Then the women would stretch it on a rack and let it dry. Finally the women would smoke it over a >ire. Then the women would sew it together with bone needles and porcupine quills.
Moccasins & Leggings
All Eastern Woodland Indians wore deer hide moccasins sewed together with sinew. All moccasins were different in each tribe. Iroquois leggings were separate tubes that went on your legs. Leggings hooked onto the same belt the breechcloths were held onto. Breechcloths
Breech cloths were a long rectangular peace of material going up down up down on a stiff wood belt.
Gustoweh
A gustoweh was a feathered cap that Iroquois men wore. The gustoweh frame was made out of three splints of wood. The kind of wood is black ash. One splint went from ear to ear, another went front to back, and one went around the head. The top of the gustoweh frame is covered in buck hide. The outside of the gustoweh was covered with Iroquois symbols. The Iroquois tied the splints together with deer muscle. They decorated it with porcupine quills.