276 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



arouud their village, very near, raised 7 feet from the earth, enveloped in cane 

 mats and covered with one in the fshape of the roof of a house, which stink 

 much and gather many crows about. Tliese savages are the most beggarly I 

 have yet seen, having no comforts in their houses, nor any wares. Some have 

 a kind of covering, made of the bark of a tree woven very neatly, as a coarse 

 cloth made of blanched hemp might be in France. The men all have active 

 lx)dies, well made, active tigures, I think little hardened to war, keeping 

 their hair short, and daubing their faces and bodies. It is a gratification to 

 the women to blacken their teeth, which they do by means of an herb crushed 

 in wax [putty] ; they remain black for a time and become white again. The 

 young girls are attentive to the face itself. Some have the body tattooed and 

 marked with black on the face and breast. They have in their villages some 

 cocks and hens. Their open counti'y (deserts) is not large for their numbers; 

 the land is sufficiently smooth in the neighborhood. Tlie country is very beau- 

 tiful, with great trees, of all kinds mixed togethe*-, except pines. I have seen 

 some wild apple trees, some peaches : there are neither strawberries, nor rasp- 

 berries, nor mulberries." 



The followino- information regarding- this town is contained in the 

 Journal of the frigate Le Marin: 



So far as the others [liesides the chief] are concerned, they are dressed only 

 in a miserable deer or bear skin, which covers them from the knees to the 

 shoulders, if the skin is very large. The most are entirely naked, not even 

 their nudity being concealed except for a little itatch about their privates, 

 the reason for which I have been unable to discover. So far as the women are 

 concerned, they have a large bearskin whicli covers them, besides a kind of 

 breechcloth which covers them from the belt to the knees, leaving their breasts, 

 belly, and throat uncovered. All have their hair cut and indeed pulled out 

 around the forehead as wgU as the beard; they leave only a little handful of 

 hair at the top of the liead, where they fasten many bird feathers of different 

 colors. They put others of these above their buttocks, which are like tails of 

 horses, which hang behind with rattles and miserable little pieces of copper, 

 like tlie ends of our chandeliers, but much thinner, in such a manner that 

 when they dance that makes a noise so that one would say that a messenger 

 had just arrived in the village. They have also a quantity of rings {tmiiiUJr!^) 

 around their arms; besides that they have the face entirely daubed rod with 

 vermilion around the eyebrows, the half of oiie cheek blackened and the nose 

 pierced, to which there hangs a piece of coral of the size of the finger, as well 

 as the ears, in which they put a certain piece of wood of the size of the little 

 finger. As to their food, they live only on corn bread and very little meat, only 

 eating it when they go to hunt bison and bear, which are sometimes distant 

 from their villages more than 20 leagues at the lower end of the river («« has 

 dc la riviere). The chiefs have their hunting grounds bounded, and when one 

 goes upon their lands ahead of them wars break out. In the evening we shot off 

 a swivel gun, which made them all fall down in astonishment. Their village may 

 be ()0 leagues from the mouth of the ri^er. At every moment they say "A;7c;"o," 

 which signifies their astonishment. * * * Then we went to see the village 

 and the temple, in which they have a fire which they preserve continually; 

 there are figures of beasts above, some marks of their sacrifices, two scalps of 

 their enemies, which hang there as trophies. * * * I saw in the middle of 

 the village, which is like a great parade ground, two great posts, 40 feet in 

 height, before their temjjle, on which two scalps were iilaced. There is a chief 



« Margry, D^couvertes, iv, 109-172, 1880. 



