54 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bill. 43 



The men and women seldom wear moccasins when they are not traveling. 

 The moccasins of the natives are made of deersliins. They come together 

 around the foot lilve a socli, supposing it had the seam above. The skin is cut 

 three fingers longer than the foot, and the shoe is sewed only to the same dis- 

 tance from the end of the foot, and all the rest is wrinlcled on the foot. The 

 hinder part is sewed like a sock, but the flaps are from 8 to 9 inches high. They 

 go all the way round the leg. They are joined in front by means of a thong 

 of bearskin, which extends to the ankle, and thus makes lace boots. These 

 moccasins have neither soles nor heels. Those of the men and the women are 

 the same." 



Gravier says, in speaking of the Natchez women, " Most of them 

 have black teeth, which are considered beantifid among them. They 

 blacken them by chewing the ashes of tobacco mixed with wood ashes 

 and rubbing them with these every morning."'' It is singular that 

 no other authority appears to have noted this point, except Iberville 

 in describing the Bayogoula,'' but all agree regarding their excessive 

 fondness for vermilion. Says Dumont, '"All the women of the 

 savages love vermilion passionately^, which they use to mattacher 

 themselves; that is, to smear not only on their faces, but sometimes on 

 the upper part of the shoulders and the stomach." This vermilion 

 was obtained from the French.'* Failing it and, of course, in i)rimi- 

 tive times, they went in search of ocher, which they reddened iu 

 the fire.'' 



The Luxembourg memoir says : 



The men and women of the Mississippi paint the face and employ for that 

 purpose different colors with more sincerity than we. Red, blue, black, and 

 white enter into the composition of their complexions. Sometimes half of the 

 face is red or white; another is marked with striiies as broad as the thumb 

 and of opposite colors. In a troop of savages prepared for some ceremony they 

 are differently daubed. The taste of each is seen and distinguished in the 

 manner of applying and placing these colors. It has appeared to me that the 

 most fantastic were among them the most refined ; they are not contented with 

 the face; they paint also a part of the head.^ 



Although head-flattening is mentioned by all writers" the only 

 good descrijDtion of the method in which it was brought al)out is the 

 following from the Luxembourg memoii-: 



They have * * * the head pointed and almost of the shape of a miter. 

 They are not born so; it is a charm which is given them in early years. What 

 a mother does to the head of her infant in order to force its tender bones to 

 assume this shape is almost beyond belief. She lays the infant on a cradle 

 which is nothing more than the end of a board on which is spread a iiiece of 

 the skin of an animal; one extremity of this board has a hole where tlH> licad 

 Is placed and it is lower than the rest. The infant being laid down entirely 

 naked she pushes back its head into this hole and apiJlies to it on the forehead 



" Du Pratz, Hist, de La Louisiane, ii, 104-19.5. 



* Gravier, Jes. Rel., i.xv, 14."). 



'• See p. 276. 



•' Dumont, MSm. Hist, sur La Louisiane, i, 155. 



' Du Pratz, Hist, de La Louisiane, ii, 184, 1758. 



' Memoire sur La Louisiane, i:i:{-i:?4. 



cCf. pp. 89-90, 262, .HKi. 



