270 INDIANS IN NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 



eighteen hundred and forty-two. He seems to have entered into 

 the work with his characteristic force and with personal observation. 



Here ends the records ; but doubtless there are other papers 

 between this date and the confederation of the Dominion, at which 

 time Indian affairs were handed over to it, still in the public offices. 



My first knowledge of the Indians began in eighteen hundred 

 and thirty-one. At that period they all lived in neat birch -bark 

 wigwams, — a house was a very rare exception ; and they all, both 

 women and men, were clothed in coarse blue cloth. The men in blue 

 frocks with scarlet edges upon the shoulders and on the arms. A 

 scarlet or gay-colored sash bound this to their waist, at the back of 

 which hung a tobacco pouch of moose skin. They wore also knee- 

 breeches and long gaiters of the same blue, with the selvage edge 

 left long, and ornamented with scarlet. The stocking was a long 

 roller of blanket, wound from the toe to the knee. A large silver 

 brooch of the size of a large watch, usually held the frock at the 

 neck ; and the foot was covered by an untanned mocassin. The 

 hair was worn very long. A beaver hat on great occasions, but 

 usually a straw hat or red cap surmounted a huge mass of unkempt 

 locks. 



The women wore a high-pointed cap of blue cloth, often orna- 

 mented with scarlet cloth and white beads ; a short gown and 

 petticoat reaching to the knee, with a gaiter trowser, and the 

 selvage left loose to the ancle. In cold weather a blanket was worn 

 over the head, and always brought square across the back. 



This pleasing dress, in which we recognize the hunting frock of 

 all North America, whether it be the deer-skin shirt and leggins, 

 with their fringes of the far west Indians, or the frock of the old 

 continental rifleman, we infer was their habit from the time they 

 ceased to wear skins. The continual mention of coarse scarlet and 

 blue serges by the French, the bales of blue cloth in the English 

 treaties, and the bills of the same furnished to them by government 

 in our own times, are ample proof. 



The gaiter is the old housen of Les Carbot with its uncut 

 fringe, and the scarlet epaulet or wing the " Matachias " of the 



