THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. 259 



sometimes the designs are laid over the other paint with charcoal. 

 Nowadays the paint is washed oif after the ceremonies, but formerly 

 it was the custom throughout the coast for the rich to renew the 

 coat daily, while the poor would have to manage according to their 

 abilities. Vancouver thus describes the war paint of the Nass, with 

 whom he had a hostile encounter : 



These had contrived so to dispose of the red, white, and black as to render the nat- 

 ural ugliness of their countenances more horribly hideous. This frightful appearance 

 did not seem to be a new fashion among them, but to have been long adopted by 

 their natural ferocious dispositions.* 



Before the advent of looking-glasses the Indians made one another's 

 toilets. A chief was served by his slaves or his wife. This custom 

 of adorning the body with paint served other than aesthetic purposes. 

 In war and ceremony it added to the effect on the observers ; it identi- 

 fied the wearer with his totem, an,d finally served as a protection to 

 the body against mosquitoes and the weather. This last named is the 

 principal use to which the custom is now put, viz, of wearing a coat of 

 black paint on the face and hands. This must be distinguished from 

 the mourning paint made from charcoal. The other referred to is a 

 brownish -black paint, now commonly worn to prevent the burning of 

 the skin in hot weather from the glare of the sun on the water, and as 

 a protection against mosquitoes and sand-flies. This coat consists of a 

 soot, like burnt cork, made from a charred fungus, rubbed into the 

 skin with grease. This gradually turns black and is frequently re- 

 newed. 



In general the paints used were charcoal, charred and roasted fun- 

 gus; white, red, and brown earths (ochres); lignite, vegetable juices; 

 and powdered cinnabar. 



Hair. — As mentioned, ochres and bird's down are used for dressing 

 the hair for ceremonial occasions. Portlock says that among the Tlin- 

 git, this was only practiced by the men.t Ordinarily the hair is 

 worn short by the men, excepting the shaman^ and long by the women, 

 who usually wear it done up in two plaits down the back, but sometimes 

 in one plait, or "clubbed" behind and bound with red cloth. The ear- 

 lier custom was somewhat different, according to Portlock (1787), who 

 says : "The women wear their hair either clubbed behind or tied up in 

 a bunch on the crown of the head; the men wear theirs either loose or 

 tied at the crown." 



The hair is dressed with combs of a somewhat conventional pattern, 

 as illustrated in Figs, lie and 11^, which are from two specimens in the 

 Emmons Collection in the Museum of Natural History, New York. 

 Figure lie is made from a small, thin piece of bone, while \ld is carved 



* Vancouver, Voyage. Vol. ii, p. 337. t Portlock, Voyage (1787), p. 290. 



