OCR Text |
Show 248 THE BLACKFEET--THEIR DRESS. medicine men, or jugglers, wear it, like the Mandans and Manitaries, divided into several thick queues all round, and generally bind them all together with a leather strap, in a thick knot over the forehead. Many bind a narrow strip of skin, or a leather strap, round the head, and stick one or two feathers in it; several fasten large bears' claws in their hair; most of them, when in full dress, wear the large necklace of these claws, which is a costly and handsome ornament; or else one made of certain roots, which smell like Fcenum Grcecum, which they obtain from the Kutanas.* Very often they adorn themselves with a braided necklace, composed of a sweet-smelling grass, probably anthoxanthum, with others of glass beads, which they buy of the Company for three or four dollars a pound, and which the women in particular highly value. Some Piekanns hang round their necks a green stone,f often of various shapes, or the teeth of buffaloes, stags, elks, horses, &c, or large round flat pieces cut out of shells. On their fingers they wear rings, mostly of brass, which they purchase, by dozens, of the Company-often six or eight on each finger, often only one or two on the whole hand. They generally let their finger nails grow long, always, at least, the thumb nail, which is often crooked like a claw. The dress of the Blackfeet is made of tanned leather, and the handsomest leather shirts are made of the skin of the bighorn, which, when new, is of a yellowish-white colour, and looks very well. A narrow strip of the skin with the hair is generally left at the edge of such a skin. These shirts have half sleeves, and the seams are trimmed with tufts of human hair, or of horse-hair dyed of various colours, hanging down, and with porcupine quills sewn round their roots. These shirts generally have at the neck a flap hanging down both before and behind, which we saw usually lined with red cloth, ornamented with fringe, or with stripes of yellow and coloured porcupine quills, or of sky-blue glass beads. Some have all these fringes composed of slips of white ermine ; this is a very costly ornament, these little animals having become scarce. Many of the distinguished chiefs and warriors wore such dresses, which are really handsome, ornamented with many strings hanging down, in the fashion of an Hungarian tobacco pouch. When these leather shirts begin to be dirty, they are often painted of a reddish-brown colour; but they are much handsomer when they are new. Some of these Indians wear on the breast and back round rosettes like the Assiniboins, but this is only a foreign fashion, and the genuine Blackfoot costume has no such ornament. Their leggins are made like those of the other Missouri Indians, and ornamented, in the same manner, with tufts of hair or stripes of porcupine quills; the shoes, of buffalo or elk leather, are also adorned with porcupine quills, each having a ground of a different colour for its ornaments; thus, if one is white, the other is yellow-a fashion which does not exist lower down the Missouri, where both shoes are of the same colour. The chief article of their dress, * These roots, which are cut into short cylinders, and strung together, are bought at high prices from other nations; for example, the Crees and the Ojibbeways. They are likewise used as an ingredient in the bait for beavers, ¦f This green stone is a compact talc or steatite, which is found in the Rocky Mountains. |