104 MICMAC INDIANS OF NOVA SCOTIA 



now less frequently seen. They still occasionally make their 

 own snowshoes. In the past they have been mnch decimated 

 by smallpox, and consumption is prevalent among them, while 

 drunkenness has been a great curse to them, but less so than 

 formerly. The children when infants are strapped in a 

 peculiarly shaped cradle, which is slung on the mother's back, 

 or suspended from a tree. The children are taught obedience 

 and respect to their parents. Women are accounted inferiors 

 to the men. 



Recent Dress. — Up to within comparatively recent years 

 the men clothed themselves in a dark blue broadcloth coat 

 ornamented with scarlet or other brightly-colored silk borders, 

 scarlet cloth pipings in the seams, and elaborate coloured- 

 beadwork extending across the upper part of the shoulders and 

 on "wing"-like shoulder pieces, as well as on the cuffs and front 

 boarder, and the coat was' girded in by a red sash. With this 

 were worn trousers of the same kind of cloth, with a row of 

 narrow-cut tags up the outside seams. A high silk hat and low 

 moose-hide moccasins completed the men's costume in those 

 days. The chief and other officials still appear in such clothes 

 (omitting the silk hat) on formal occasions, and the chief also 

 at times of great ceremony wears a headdress of eagle-feathers. 

 I am informed that the chief at Shubenacadie (?) has the equi- 

 valent of a "wampum" belt, which is hereditary in the office. 

 I have not seen it, but it is described as being composed of vari- 

 ous dark-coloured pierced stones strung on sinews or a leathern 

 thong, and it is said to have some symbolic meaning, or tells 

 some story, although there are few if any of the Indians who 

 can now interpret it although some have an obscure idea of its 

 signification.* Other heirlooms or insignia descending to each 



♦Reference to this belt is made en the authority cf one Indian, and I have had 

 no opportunity of verifying the statement which must be take vs^ith some doubt. 

 Chief Noel never referred to the belt, although he showed me his other insignia 

 of ofRce. It was not among the chief's official effects which were forwarded to 

 the Archbishop of Halifax on Noel's death in 1911. Dr. Rand, however, refers 

 to a wampum belt on page 81 of his Reading Book, saying "as marked on the 

 'wampum belt,' [the chief's district of] Cape Breton is at the head." It Ms 

 possible that the belt is in Cape Breton. 



