482 SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA. 
smile, beautiful regular teeth; and the whole face is expressive of the 
man’s sense of having extraordinary ability to endure and to achieve. 
Two of the warriors permitted me to manipulate the muscles of their 
bodies. Under my touch these were more like rubber than flesh. Notice. 
able among all are the large calves of their legs, the size of the tendons 
of their lower limbs, and the strength of their toes. I attribute this ex- 
ceptional development to the fact that they are not what we would call 
“horse Indians” and that they hunt barefoot over their wide domain. 
The same causes, perhaps, account for the only real deformity I noticed 
in the Seminole physique, namely, the diminutive toe nails, and for the 
heavy, cracked, and seamed skin which covers the soles of their feet. 
The feet being otherwise well formed, the toes have only narrow shells 
for nails, these lying sunken across the middles of the tough cushions of 
flesh, which, protuberant about them, form the toe-tips. But, regarded 
as a whole, in their physique the Seminole warriors, especially the men of 
the Tiger and Otter gentes, are admirable. Even among the children this 
physicalsuperiorityisseen. To illustrate, one morning Ko-i-ha-tco’s son, 
Tin-fai-yai-ki, a tall, slender boy, not quite twelve years old, shouldered a 
heavy “ Kentucky” rifle, left our camp, and followed in his father’s long 
footsteps for a day’s hunt. After tramping all day, at sunset he reap- 
peared in the camp, carrying slung across his shoulders, in addition to 
rifle and accouterments, a deer weighing perhaps fifty pounds, a weight 
he had borne for miles. The same boy, in one day, went with some older 
friends to his permanent home, 20 miles away, and returned. There 
are, as I have said, exceptions to this rule of unusual physical size and 
strength, but these are few; so few that, disregarding them, we may 
pronounce the Seminole men handsome and exceptionally powerful. 
PHYSIQUE OF THE WOMEN. 
The women to a large extent share the qualities of the men. Some 
are proportionally tall and handsome, though, curiously enough, many, 
perhaps a majority, are rather under than over the average height of 
women. As arule, they exhibit great bodily vigor. Large or small, they 
possess regular and agreeable features, shapely and well developed 
bodies, and they show themselves capable of long continued and severe 
physical exertion. Indeed, the only Indian women I have seen with at- 
tractive features and forms are among the Seminole. I would even 
venture to select from among these Indians three persons whom I could, 
without much fear of contradiction, present as types respectively of a 
handsome, a pretty, and a comely woman. Among American Indians, 
IT am confident that the Seminole women are of the first rank. 
CLOTHING. 
But how is this people clothed? . While the clothing of the Seminole 
is simple and scanty, it is ample for his needs and suitable to the life 
he leads. The materials of which the clothing is made ere now chiefly 
