How to Use This Book

This book is a research book. You can read it from cover to cover if you want a full picture of how the Natives to the Southeastern part of what is now the United States were first observed by the White men who explored this region and, then, how circumstances changed their lives. You can follow them through the centuries as they traversed the Trail of Tears which brought many into Indian Territory and what became the state of Oklahoma. You will get a socio-economic-polictical study of their lives through the culture of their dress and adornment.

Or you can use the book strictly as a reference book to trace their dress and adornment through the centuries as events and circumstances affected it and note the part it played in the life of the Native Americans as well as the non-natives. The book is divided so that you can do this easily.

It is broken up into large divisions which represent centuries starting with the 16th century and ending with the late 19th century. After Part 1 which treats the Southeast as it would have appeared in the mid 16th century, each subsequent part stresses dress. To understand Native Indian dress, a reference point is important. That reference point is initially, European dress and, then, Euro-American, and, finally, American. This is important because one is reading reports of people observing and describing events first hand.

The chapters are then broken into geographical locations in the Southeast and, eventually, into tribal designations. So, for example, one could follow Cherokee dress by finding the early location of the Cherokees. The actual chapters that start to deal with the dress of the "Five Civilized Tribes" start in Part 3, however, earlier parts can refer to these tribes if not by name, then, loosely by location.