28 APPEARANCE OF THE INDIANS. 



placed on the weather-side, forming lean-tos, shelters to larger 

 fires, used for more extensive culinary operations than can be 

 carried on within the hut. On the shores are seen drawn up 

 beautifully-formed canoes of birch bark of various sizes — some 

 sufficient to carry eight or ten men ; and others, in which 

 only one or two people can sit. 



APPEARANCE OF THE INDIAN'S. 



Amid the huts may be seen human figures with dull copper 

 or reddish-brown complexions, clothed in rudely-tanned skins 

 of a yellowish or white hue, and ornamented with the teeth 

 of animals and coloured grasses, or worsted and beads. Their 

 figures are tall and slight. They have black, piercing eyes, 

 slightly inclining downwards towards the nose, which is broad 

 and large. They have thick, coarse lips, high and prominent 

 cheek-bones, with somewhat narrow foreheads, and coarse, 

 dark, glossy hair, without an approach to a curl ; their heads 

 sometimes adorned with feathered caps or other ornaments. 

 Often their faces are besmeared with various coloured pig- 

 ments in stripes or patches — one colour on one side of the 

 face, the other being of a different hue. Their lower extremi- 

 ties are covered with leggings of leather, ornamented with 

 fringes, and their feet clothed in mocassins of the same 

 material as their leggings. The men stalk carelessly about, 

 or repair their canoes or fishing gear and arms ; while the 

 women sit, crouching down to the ground, bending over their 

 caldrons, shelling Indian corn, or engaged in some other 

 domestic occupation ; and the children, innocent of clothing, 

 tumble about on the ground. In travelling, the Indian mother 

 carries her child on her back. It is strapped to a board ; 

 and when a halting -place is reached, the cradle and the 



