86

CHAPTER VIII.

VANITY AS TO DRESS, AND OTHER PERSONAL

DECORATION.

THE warriors and chiefs are distinguished by their ornaments. The present dress of the Indians is well known to consist in blankets, plain or ruffled shirts and leggins for the men, and cloth petticoats for the women, generally red, blue, or black. The blankets are sometimes made of feathers. This manufacture requires great patience, being a very tedious kind of work; yet the Indians do it in a most ingenious manner. The feathers (generally those of the turkey and goose) are curiously arranged and interwoven together with a sort of thread or twine, which they prepare from the rind or bark of the wild hemp and nettle. The wealthy adorn themselves with ribands or gartering of various colours, beads, and silver broaches. They wear, moreover, broad rings or bands on their arms, fingers, and round their hats ; these ornaments are highly valued if of silver, but if only plated they are despised, and would hardly be worn. I have seen in young children, three rings in each ear. These decorations are arranged by the women, who, as well as the men, know how to dress themselves in style. Those of the men consist in the painting of themselves (their head and face principally,) wearing gaudy garments, with silver arm spangles and breast-plates, and a belt or two of wampum hanging to their necks. The women, at the expense of their husbands or lovers, line their petticoat and blanket with choice ribands of various colours, or with gartering, on which they fix a number of silver broaches or small round buckles. They adorn their

leggings in the same manner; their mockasens are neatly embroidered with coloured porcupine quills, and are besides, almost entirely covered with various trinkets; they have also a number of little bells and brass thimbles fixed round their ankles, which, when they walk, make a tinkling noise, which is heard at some distance; this is intended to draw the attention of those who pass by, that they may look at, and admire them.

The women make use of vermilion in painting themselves for dances; but they are very careful and circumspect in applying the paint, so that it does not offend or create suspicion in their husbands; there is a mode of painting which is left entirely to loose women and prostitutes.

The following diverting anecdote is told by my old friend the Moravian missionary :

"As I was once resting in my travels at the house of a trader who lived at some distance from an Indian town, I went in the morning to visit an Indian acquaintance and friend of mine. I found him engaged in plucking out his beard, preparatory to painting himself for a dance which was to take place the ensuing evening. Having finished his head-dress, about an hour before sunset, he came up, as he said, to see me, but I and my companions judged that he came to be seen. To my utter astonishment, I saw three different paintings or figures on one and the same face. He had, by his great ingenuity and judgment in laying on and shading the different colours, made his nose appear, when we stood directly in front of him, as if it were very long and narrow, with a round nob at the end, much like the upper part of a pair of tongs. On one cheek there was a red round spot, about the size of an apple, and the other was done in the same manner with black. The eye-lids, both the upper and lower ones, were reversed in the colouring. When we viewed him in profile on one side, his nose repre

sented the beak of an eagle, with the bill rounded and brought to a point, precisely as those birds have it, though the mouth was somewhat open. The eye was astonishingly well done, and the head, upon the whole, appeared tolerably well, showing a great Ideal of fierceness. When we turned round to the other side, the same nose now resembled the snout of a pike, with the mouth so open, that the teeth could be seen. He seemed much pleased with the execution; and having his looking glass with him he contemplated his work, seemingly with great pride and exultation. He asked me how I liked it? I answered that if he had done the work on a piece of board, bark, or any thing else, I should like it very well, and often look at it. But,' asked he, why not so as it is ?' Because,' said I, 'I cannot see the face that is hidden under these colours, so as to know who it is.' 'Well,' he replied, 'I must go now; and as you cannot know me to-day, I will call tomorrow morning before you leave this place. He did so, and when he came back, he was washed clean again."

6

When the men paint their thighs, legs and breast, they generally, after laying on a thin shading coat of a darkish colour, and sometimes of a whitish clay, dip their fingers' ends in black or red paint, and then spreading them out, bring the streaks to a serpentine form.

The notion formerly entertained that the Indians are beardless by nature, and have no hair on their bodies, is now entirely exploded. It is scarcely possible, indeed, for any person to pass a few weeks only among these people, without seeing them pluck out their beards with tweezers made expressly for that purpose. They perform the operation in a very quick manner, much like the plucking of a fowl; and the oftener it is done, the finer the hair grows, till at last the roots are so destroyed, that little or no hair appears left. The reasons they give for thus deraci

nating their hair, are that they may have a clean skin to lay the paint on, when they dress for their festivals or dances, and to facilitate the tattooing themselves; a custom formerly much in vogue among them, especially with those who had acquired celebrity by their valour. They say that either painting or tattooing on a hairy face or body would have a disgusting appearance.

Tattooing is now greatly discontinued. The process is quickly done, and does not seem to give much pain. They have poplar-bark in readiness, burnt and reduced to a powder; the figures that are to be tattooed are marked or designed on the skin; the operator, with a small stick, rather larger than a common match (to the end of which some sharp needles are fastened) quickly pricks over the whole so that blood is drawn; then a coat of the above powder is laid and left on to dry.

was travelling in the United States, near Lake Erie, accompanied by a gentleman who, like myself, was a stranger in the country; and after riding several miles through the woods in great suspense, as scarcely any track was discernible, we at length arrived at an Indian hut. Night was now approaching, and we determined to return; but, observing through the trees a number of Indians coming towards us, we changed our purpose, lest our going off might have been considered an indication of fear, a thing they are very apt to resent. We, therefore, spurred our horses forward, and proceeded towards several wellconstructed framed houses, near one of which stood two Indian men. Having alighted, we fastened our horses to the railing that enclosed a small garden, and accosted the men with assumed confidence, though not altogether without fear, for as they were living within the States, it occurred to our minds that they might not be friendly if they perceived we were British. These men were engaged sharpening an ax at a grindstone. When the Indian who turned the

stone, discovered he was looked at, he immediately changed hands at his work, and with secret pride, but affected carelessness, extended the little finger of the hand now employed, on which we could not avoid seeing a large silver ring. No sweet clergyman, in odour with the ladies, could have better displayed a jewel over the edge of his pulpit,—no spruce physician, conscious of his brilliants, while feeling his patient's pulse; or dandy, taking a pinch of snuff with an eye to the exhibition of his trinkets, could have done the thing with a finer air than our Indian. This high mark of civilization, I must confess, inspired me with courage. We went past them to the house, into which we entered without ceremony, though the door was shut. We there found a young squaw who took little notice of us. The house was a framed one, well boarded outside, and lined and floored with the same material within. It was about twenty feet square, and ten high. In the side there was a loft, which seemed to be used as a kind of store-house for cobbs, or heads of Indian corn, wool, &c. There were two bedsteads with blankets and covers of striped woollen and linen, a small table, and some rude chairs. On each side the fire stood a hollow trunk of a tree, about two feet ten inches high, in the bottom of each of which were a hard stone, and a large wooden pounder or pestle for bruising Indian corn. There were, moreover, some pots, pans, wooden plates and dishes, a churn for milk, and pails for Few cabins milking, scooped out of the solid tree.

in Ireland surpassed the one I am describing; and very few indeed, I grieve to say, equal it. Other buildings, still more commodious, appeared at a distance; but as night was gaining upon us, and we had still seven miles through the woods to go, we hurried away from the interesting scene. On our road we met two squaws, each riding a very good horse. Upon seeing us, they imitated the polished airs of the most refined people; holding themselves