Amid the huts may be seen human figures with dull copper or
reddish-brown complexions, clothed in rudely-tanned skins of a yellowish
or white hue, and ornamented with the teeth of animals and coloured
grasses, or worsted and beads. Their figures are tall and slight. They
have black, piercing eyes, slightly inclining downwards towards the
nose, which is broad and large. They have thick, coarse lips, high and
prominent cheek-bones, with somewhat narrow foreheads, and coarse, dark,
glossy hair, without an approach to a curl; their heads sometimes
adorned with feathered caps or other ornaments. Often their faces are
besmeared with various coloured pigments in stripes or patches--one
colour on one side of the face, the other being of a different hue.
Their lower extremities are covered with leggings of leather, ornamented
with fringes, and their feet clothed in mocassins of the same material
as their leggings. The men stalk carelessly about, or repair their
canoes or fishing gear and arms; while the women sit, crouching down to
the ground, bending over their caldrons, shelling Indian-corn, or
engaged in some other domestic occupation; and the children, innocent of
clothing, tumble about on the ground. In travelling, the Indian mother
carries her child on her back. It is strapped to a board; and when a
halting-place is reached, the cradle and the child are hung upon a tree,
or on a pole inside the wigwam. Those who have communication with the
whites may be seen clothed in blanket garments, which the men wear in
the shape of coats; while the women swathe their bodies in a whole
blanket, which covers them from their shoulders to their feet.
Though the men assume a grave and dignified air when a stranger
approaches, they often indulge in practical jokes and laughter among
themselves; and in seasons of prosperity, appear good-humoured and
merry. The women, however, are doomed to lives of unremitting toil,
from the time they become wives. They are compelled to carry the
burdens, and to cultivate the ground, when any ground is cultivated, for
the production of potatoes, maize, and tobacco. The men condescend
merely to manufacture their arms and canoes, and to hunt; or they engage
in what they consider the noblest of employments, waging war on their
neighbours. The women, indeed, are often compelled to paddle the
canoes, sometimes to go fishing, and to carry the portable property from
place to place, or an overload of game when captured.
Intelligent as the Indian appears, it is evident that he has cultivated
his perceptive powers to the neglect of his spiritual and moral
qualities. His senses are remarkably acute. His memory is good; and
when aroused, his imagination is vivid, though wild in the extreme. He
is warmly attached to hereditary customs and manners. Naturally
indolent and slothful, he detests labour, and looks upon it as a
disgrace, though he will go through great fatigue when hunting or
engaged in warfare.