INDIANS OF MANHATTAN ISLAND 



Indian tribes east of the Mississippi 

 had one point in common, they were 

 soft-soled, but west of the Mississippi 

 region the tribes of the prairies used 

 hard flat soles of rawhide for their 

 shoes. 



In addition to this costume the 

 warriors wore necklaces of dyed deer 

 hair, of native copper or shell beads, 

 or wampum ; and often they hung over 

 their chests pendants of stone or 

 gorgets, such as are still to be found 

 occasionally upon the sites of their 

 old camps. They also painted their 

 faces with various pigments, especially 

 red and black, which they obtained 

 from limonite and graphite fragments. 

 To this day one may find in the debris 

 of an abandoned Indian lodge bits of 

 these paint stones showing the striated 

 markings of the stone scrapers with 

 which the color was removed for use. 

 The Manhattans, being a part of the 

 Delaware tribe, an important group of 

 the Algonkin stock, probably followed 

 the ancient Delaware custom of tattoo- 

 ing their bodies, with designs represent- 

 ing their dreams and warlike exploits. 



Old paintings of the Delaware show 

 us that they wore their knives, and 

 even their tobacco pipes and pouches, 

 suspended from their necks. The 

 reason for wearing their knives in this 

 position, old Indians of some of the 

 central western tribes declare, was so 

 that they could be more readily seized 

 at a moment's notice. Besides his 

 deerskin tobacco pouch, with its dyed 

 hair and porcupine quill embroidery 

 and leathern fringe, each warrior 

 carried a war club, carved of wood, 

 with a ball-shaped head set at right 

 angles from the handle, and a six foot 

 bow and quiver of flint, bone, or antler 

 tipped arrows. 



The women were differently clothed 

 from the men. They often wore their 

 hair in a braid over which they drew a 

 " square cap," ornamented with wam- 

 pum. Presumably this hair dress was 

 similar to that used by the Winnebago 

 and Sauk and Fox women of the 

 middle west today, examples of which 

 may be found in the cases in the Wood- 

 land Hall under the various tribal 

 designations. 



The women, like the men, were 

 naked to the waist, save for the robe, 

 which was shifted from side to side, 

 according from whence the coldest 

 wind blew. They wore, however, knee 

 leggings instead of the hip length style 

 of the warriors, and wrapped about 

 their waists a single square piece of 

 fringed leather, which was open at one 

 side exactly like a modern sheath skirt. 

 Sometimes these skirts were not made 

 of leather, but instead were of cloth 

 woven from Indian hemp, such as was 

 also used to make bags. The women 

 covered their gala costumes with 

 wampum beads, and quill or hair 

 embroidery, so that some of the old 

 chroniclers declare that a dress of this 

 sort was often worth " above 300 

 guilders." Of course the women, like 

 the men, protected their feet with 

 dainty soft-soled moccasins. 



The houses or wigwams of the Man- 

 hattan and their neighbors were never 

 the conical shaped, leather covered, 

 painted tipis so often shown in illus- 

 trations. Lodges of that type were 

 only found in the Great Plains area, 

 and northward up the Mackenzie 

 River and thence eastward about 

 Hudson Bay and Labrador. The 

 Manhattan lodges were of bark, and 

 they and the other local tribes com- 

 monly built either square or semi- 



