DRESS, AND ORNAMENTING OF THEIR PERSONS.
In ancient times, the dress of the Indians was made of the skins of
animals and feathers. This clothing, they say, was not only warmer, but
lasted much longer than any woollen goods they have since purchased of
the white people. They can dress any skin, even that of the buffaloe,
so that it becomes quite soft and supple, and a good buffaloe or bear
skin blanket will serve them many years without wearing out. Beaver
and raccoon skin blankets are also pliant, warm and durable; they sew
together as many of those skins as is necessary, carefully setting
the hair or fur all the same way, so that the blanket or covering be
smooth, and the rain do not penetrate, but run off. In wearing these
fur blankets they are regulated by the weather; if it is cold and dry
the fur is placed next the body, but in warm and wet weather, they
have it outside. Some made themselves long frocks of fine fur, and
the women’s petticoats in the winter season were also made of them,
otherwise of dressed deer skins, the same as their shirts, leggings and
shoes. They say that shoes made of dressed bear skins, with the hair on
and turned inside, are very warm, and in dry weather, durable. With the
large rib bones of the elk and buffaloe they shaved the hair off the
skins they dressed, and even now, they say that they can clean a skin
as well with a well prepared rib-bone as with a knife.
The blankets made from feathers were also warm and durable. They were
the work of the women, particularly of the old, who delight in such
work, and indeed, in any work which shews that they are able to do
their parts and be useful to society. It requires great patience, being
the most tedious kind of work I have ever seen them perform, yet they
do it in a most ingenious manner. The feathers, generally those of the
turkey and goose, are so curiously arranged and interwoven together
with thread or twine, which they prepare from the rind or bark of
the wild hemp and nettle, that ingenuity and skill cannot be denied
them. They show the same talent and much forethought in making their
_Happis_, the bands with which they carry their bags and other burdens;
they make these very strong and lasting.
The present dress of the Indians is well known to consist in blankets,
plain or ruffled shirts and leggings for the men, and petticoats for
the women, made of cloth, generally red, blue, or black. The wealthy
adorn themselves besides with ribands or gartering of various colours,
beads and silver broaches. These ornaments are arranged by the women,
who, as well as the men, know how to dress themselves in style. Those
of the men principally consist in the painting of themselves, their
head and face principally, shaving or good clean garments, 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 blue or scarlet cloth blanket or covering 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 mocksens, (properly _Maxen_, or
according to the English pronunciation _Moxen_), are embroidered in the
neatest manner, with coloured porcupine quills, and are besides, almost
entirely covered with various trinkets; they have, moreover, a number
of little bells and brass thimbles fixed round their ancles, 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.
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 knob
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 represented 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, shewing
a great deal 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 his
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 anything else, I should like it very well and often look at
it. But, asked he, why not so as it is? Because 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
to-morrow morning before you leave this place. He did so, and when he
came back he was washed clean again.
Thus, for a single night’s _frolic_, a whole day is spent in what they
call dressing, in which each strives to outdo the other.
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
drawing it on with their outspread fingers, bring the streaks to a
serpentine form. The garments of some of their principal actors are
singular, and decorated with such a number of gewgaws and trinkets,
that it is impossible to give a precise description of them. Neither
are they all alike in taste, every one dressing himself according to
his fancy, or the custom of the tribe to which he belongs. While the
women, as I have already said, have thimbles and little bells rattling
at their ancles, the men have deers’ claws fixed to their braced
garters or knee bands, and also to their shoes, for the same purpose;
for they consider jingling and rattling as indispensably necessary to
their performances in the way of dancing.
The notion formerly entertained that the Indians are beardless by
nature and have no hair on their bodies, appears now to be exploded
and entirely laid aside. I cannot conceive how it is possible for any
person to pass three weeks only among those people, without seeing
them pluck out their beards, with tweezers made expressly for that
purpose. Before the Europeans came into the country, their apparatus
for performing this work, consisted of a pair of muscle shells,
sharpened on a gritty stone, which answered very well, being somewhat
like pincers; but since they can obtain wire, of which that of brass is
preferred, they make themselves tweezers, which they always carry with
them in their tobacco-pouch, wherever they go, and when at leisure,
they pluck out their beards or the hair above their foreheads. This
they do in a very quick manner, much like the plucking of a fowl, and
the oftener they pluck out their hair, the finer it grows afterwards,
so that at last there appears hardly any, the whole having been rooted
out. The principal reasons which they give for thus plucking out their
beards and the hair next to their foreheads, 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 use among them, especially with those who had distinguished
themselves by their valour, and acquired celebrity. They say that
either painting or tattooing on a hairy face or body would have a
disgusting appearance.
As late as the year 1762, when I resided at Tuscorawas on the
Muskingum, tattooing was still practised by some Indians; a valiant
chief of that village, named _Wawundochwalend_, desirous of having
another name given him, had the figure of a water-lizard engraved
or tattooed on his face, above the chin, when he received the name
_Twakachshawsu_, the water-lizard. The process of tattooing, which I
once saw performed, 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 this powder is
laid and left on to dry. Before the whites came into this country,
they scarified themselves for this purpose with sharp flint stones, or
pricked themselves with the sharp teeth of a fish.
In the year 1742, a veteran warrior of the Lenape nation and Monsey
tribe, renowned among his own people for his bravery and prowess, and
equally dreaded by their enemies, joined the Christian Indians who
then resided at this place.[187] This man, who was then at an advanced
age, had a most striking appearance, and could not be viewed without
astonishment. Besides that his body was full of scars, where he had
been struck and pierced by the arrows of the enemy, there was not a
spot to be seen, on that part of it which was exposed to view, but what
was tattooed over with some drawing relative to his achievements, so
that the whole together struck the beholder with amazement and terror.
On his whole face, neck, shoulders, arms, thighs and legs, as well as
on his breast and back, were represented scenes of the various actions
and engagements he had been in; in short, the whole of his history
was there deposited, which was well known to those of his nation, and
was such that all who heard it thought it could never be surpassed by
man.[188] Far from, murdering those who were defenceless or unarmed,
his generosity, as well as his courage and skill in the art of war,
was acknowledged by all. When, after his conversion, he was questioned
about his warlike feats, he frankly and modestly answered, “That being
now taken captive by _Jesus Christ_, it did not become him to relate
the deeds he had done while in the service of the evil spirit; but
that he was willing to give an account in the manner in which he had
been _conquered_.” At his baptism, on the 23d of December 1742, he
received the name of _Michael_, which he preserved until his death,
which happened on the 23rd of July 1756. He led the life of a true
Christian, and was always ready and willing to relate the history of
his conversion, which I heard myself from his own mouth. His age, when
he died, was supposed to be about eighty years.
The cutting of the ears, which formerly was practised among the
Indians, is now no longer so common with them. Their reasons for laying
this custom aside, are that the operation is painful, not only when
performed, but until the ears are perfectly healed, which takes a
long time, and that they often lose that part of their ears which is
separated from the solid part, by its being torn off by the bushes, or
falling off when frost-bitten. I once heard of a gay Indian setting
off on a severe cold morning for a neighbouring village not more than
three miles distant, whose ears had been touched by the frost, and
dropped off before he arrived at the place to which he was going. He
had not even felt that he had lost them, and when told of it, he was
so chagrined that he was going to destroy himself. I have seen a great
many Indians with torn ears; but now the custom of cutting them is
nearly if not entirely disused.