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Show THE BLACKFEET----PAINTING THEIR FACES----HEAD DRESS. 247 Even little children have the dark brown colour, but newly born infants are rather paler. Children, as in Brazil, have, in general, prominent bellies and thin limbs, and often the navel large and swollen. The Blackfeet do not disfigure their bodies; none of the nations of the Missouri bore the nose and lips, except a tribe in the Rocky Mountains, who are known by the name of Pierced Nosed Indians, because they bore a hole through the gristle of the nose. It is only in the ear that the Blackfeet pierce one or two small holes, in which they wear various ornaments, such as strings of glass beads, alternating with white cylinders, which they get from the Dentalium, which they barter from the nations on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, especially the Kutanas. Many Blackfeet do not wear anything in their ears, which are generally concealed by their long thick hair. I have never seen any tatooing among them. On the other hand, many had, upon their arms, parallel transverse incisions, which were cicatrized, and most of them wanted one or two joints of a finger, of which I shall have occasion to speak by-and-bye. They paint their faces red with vermilion; this colour, which they procure by barter from the traders, is rubbed in with fat, which gives them a shining appearance. Others colour only the edge of their eyelids, and some stripes in the face, with red; others use a certain yellow clay for the face, and red round the eyes ; others, again, paint the face red, and the forehead, a stripe down the nose, and the chin, blue, with the shining earth from the mountains which I have before-mentioned, and which, being analyzed by Professor Cordier, at Paris, he found to be mixed with an earthy peroxide of iron, probably mixed with some clay. Others colour the whole face black, and only the eyelids and some stripes red. The women and children paint the face only of a uniform red. The vermilion costs the Indians very dear, for the Company supply it from their stores at ten dollars a pound. The Blackfeet do not paint the body-at least, I have never seen it, and it is generally covered. Their hair hangs down straight and stiff, often in disorder over the eyes and round the head. Young people, however, who pay more attention to neatness, part it regularly over the forehead, and comb it smooth. A small sea-shell is often fastened to a tuft of hair on each side, close to the temples ; others were on one side, and often on both sides of the forehead, and a lock of hair with brass and iron wire twisted round it; lastly, a few adopted the ornament usual among the Manitaries and Mandans, which forms a long string on each side of the forehead, and will be particularly described when we are treating of the latter. Such a one was worn by the son of the old Kutona,, Makuie-Poka, and by a few other Blackfeet, who had had intercourse with the Manitaries. Some distinguished Blackfeet warriors had a tuft of the feathers of owls, or birds of prey, hanging at the back of the head ; sometimes ermine skin, with little stripes of red cloth, adorned with bright buttons ; or, on the top of the head, broad black feathers, cut short, like a brush, as represented in the portrait of the Assiniboin, Noapeh. (Plate XII.) Some braid the hair in a long thick queue behind, and many, especially the |