“The Mexicans had also,” says Prescott, “the art of spinning a fine thread of the hair of the rabbit and other animals, which they wove into a delicate web that took a permanent dye.... The women, as in other parts of the country, seemed to go about as freely as the men. They wore several skirts or petticoats of different lengths, with highly ornamented borders, and sometimes over them loose flowing robes, which reached to the ankles. These, also, were made of cotton; for the wealthier classes, of a fine texture, prettily embroidered. No veils were worn here (Mexico) as in some other parts of Anahuac, where they were made of the aloe thread, or of the light web of hair above noticed.”[115] Biart[116] says the women wore “a piece of cloth _cueitl_, which they wrapped around their bodies, and which descended a little below the knee; over this skirt they wore a sleeveless chemise called _huepilli_.” [Illustration: CHILKAT CEREMONIAL SHIRT] The Mayas and other Amerinds of the Central region used woven cloths similar to those of the Aztecs. Of the dress of the modern Amerinds of Nicaragua, Squier says: “It is exceedingly simple. On ordinary occasions the women wear only a white or flowered skirt fastened round the waist, leaving the upper part of the person entirely exposed, or but partially covered by a handkerchief fastened around the neck. In Masaya and some other places, a square piece of cloth of native manufacture, and precisely the same style and pattern with that used for the same purpose before the Discovery, supplies the place of a skirt. It is fastened in some incomprehensible way without aid of strings or pins and falls from the hips a little below the knees.... The men wear a kind of cotton drawers, fastened above the hips, but frequently reaching no lower than the knees. Sandals supply the place of shoes, but for the most part both sexes go with bare feet.”[117] The costume of the women of Louisiana as depicted by Du Pratz in an illustration in his history, is almost, if not quite identical with the costume of the women of Nicaragua.