North American olden Clothing
During the last Ice Age, Asia and America were linked by a bridge of land and ice. Hunters from northern Asia followed herds of buffalo until they arrived in the northwestern tip of America. Then, very gradually, over thousands of years, people spread out all over the continent. In each area where they settled, the Native Americans established a different way of life.
Arctic people early ancestors of the Inuit people lived by hunting seals and walruses, fish, and birds. Like their Inuit descendants, the people of the Arctic must have used animal skins to make hooded coats, pants, mittens, and boots. They also carved ornaments from walrus tusks.
A miniature ivory mask survives from around 500 BCE, which may have belonged to a chief or a priest.
The people of the plains hunted buffalo for food, and hunters disguised themselves by wearing the skin of a wolf or a buffalo. Like the later people of the plains, the early buffalo hunters must have used buffalo hides to make tepees and clothes. The early plains dwellers probably also held ceremonial dances, when some of them dressed as buffalo…,
The Hopewell people were great traders who exchanged goods with tribes as far away as the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico, and brought back copper, silver, mica, and quartz.
Hopewell craft-workers made copper sheets into designs such as flying birds. They also cut out shapes, such as hands and claws, from mica sheets. No one knows the function of these small, flat ornaments, but they may have been worn as pendants, or sewn onto clothes..
Northeastern woodlands people were hunters and gatherers who wore loincloths, cloaks, and moccasins made from leather and decorated with dried seeds and feathers. They painted patterns on their skin and wore feathered headdresses on their heads.
