A cane break that is.
Cane breaks received mention throughout Tennessee and Kentucky’s history. As far back as four to five thousand years
ago, Late Archaic and Early Woodland Indians were binding clusters of cane
together to light their way through caves in the karst region (I heard that from a Mammoth Cave guide I know). They also used it to weave baskets, and when
burying children, they would wrap the body “in a matting woven from the outer
bark of the cane”.[1] They would choose to live in the river
bottoms where cane grew in abundance “thirty feet tall and three inches thick”.[2]
For explorers and settlers it was, simply put, everlastingly
present as either a help or a hindrance.
Soldiers could hide in it during battle, and cattle would feed on the
young shoots, but where traveling through was concerned . . .
