180 Expedition to the 



the Missouri, with whose appearance we had been, for some 

 time, familiar. Their average stature appeared to us less 

 considerable, and although the general appearance of the 

 countenance was such as we had been accustomed to see, 

 yet their faces have, perhaps, somewhat more latitude, and 

 the Roman nose is obviously far less predominant; but still, 

 the direction of the eye, the prominence of the cheek bones, 

 the form of the lips, teeth, chin, and retreating forehead, are 

 precisely similar. They have also the same habit of plucking 

 the hair from various parts of the body; but that of the head, 

 in the female, is only suffered to attain to the shoulders, 

 whilst the men permit theirs to grow to its full extent. They 

 even regard long hair as an ornament; and many wear false 

 hair fastened to their own by means of an earthy matter, re- 

 sembling red cla\, and depfcnding,in many instances, particu- 

 larly in the young beaux, to their knees, in the form of queues, 

 one on each side of the head, variously decorated with rib- 

 bon-like slips of red and blue cloth, or coloured skin. Oth- 

 ers, and by no means an i^iconsiderable few, had collected 

 their long hair into several flat masses of the breadth of two 

 or three fingers, and less than the fifth of an inch in thick- 

 ness, each one separately annulated with red clay, at regular 

 intervals. The elders wore their hair without decoration, 

 flowing loosely about their shoulders, or simply intermixed 

 with slender plaited queues. In structure and colour it is not 

 distinguished from that of the Missouri Indians, though in 

 early youth it is often of a much lighter colour; and a young 

 man, of perhaps fifteen years of age, who visited us to-day, 

 had hair decidedly of a flaxen hue, with a tint of dusky 

 ycTlow. 



Their costume is very simple, that of the female con- 

 sisting of a leathern petticoat, reaching the calf of the leg, 

 destitute of a seam, and often exposing a well formed thigh, 

 as the casualties of wind, or position, influence the artless 

 foldings of the skirt; the leg and foot are often naked, but 



