A young Indian warrior is, notoriously, the most thoroughgoing beau
in the world. Bond-street and Broadway furnish no subjects that will
undergo as much crimping and confinement, to appear in full dress.
We are confident that we have observed such a character constantly
occupied with his paints and his pocket-glass, three full hours, laying
on his colours, and adjusting his tresses, and contemplating, from
time to time, with visible satisfaction, the progress of his growing
attractions. When he has finished, the proud triumph of irresistible
charms is in his eye. The chiefs and warriors, in full dress, have
one, two, or three broad clasps of silver about their arms; generally
jewels in their ears, and often in their noses; and nothing is more
common than to see a thin circular piece of silver, of the size of
a dollar, depending from their nose, a little below the upper lip.
Nothing shows more clearly the influence of fashion. This ornament—so
painfully inconvenient, as it evidently is to them, and so horribly
ugly and disfiguring—seems to be the utmost finish of Indian taste.
Porcupine quills, stained of different colours, are twisted in their
hair. Tails of animals hang from their hair behind. A necklace of
bears’ or alligators’ teeth, or claws of the bald eagle, hangs loosely
down; and an interior and smaller circle of large red beads, or in
default of them, a rosary of red hawthorn berries, surrounds the neck.
From the knees to the feet, the legs are decorated with great numbers
of little perforated cylindrical pieces of silver or brass, that emit
a simultaneous tinkle as the person walks. If, to all this, he add
an American hat, and a soldier’s coat, of blue, faced with red, over
the customary calico shirt of the gaudiest colours that can be found,
he lifts his feet high, and steps firmly on the ground, to give his
tinklers a uniform and full sound; and apparently considers his person
with as much complacency as the human bosom can be supposed to feel.
This is a very curtailed view of an Indian beau; but every reader,
competent to judge, will admit its fidelity, as far as it goes, to
the description of a young Indian warrior over the whole Mississippi
Valley, when prepared to take part in a public dance.