M \ rERIAL CULTURE. 1 1 



Dress. 



not elaborately clothed. 

 At home, they usually went about in breech cloth and 

 moccasins. The former was a broad strip of cloth 

 drawn up between the legs and passed under the belt 

 both behind and before. There is some reason for 

 believing that even this was introduced by white 

 traders, the more primitive form being a small apron 

 of dressed skin. At all seasons a man kept at hand a 

 soft tanned buffalo robe in which he tastefully swathed 

 his person when appearing in public. This was uni- 

 versally true of all except those of the Plateau area 

 and possibly some of the southern tribes. In the Pla- 

 teaus, the most common for winter were robes of ante- 

 lope, elk, and mountain sheep, while in summer 

 elkskins without the hair were w T orn. Beaver skins 

 and those of other small animals were sometimes 

 pieced together. According to Grinnell, the Blackfoot, 

 east of the Rocky Mountains also used these various 

 forms of robes. The Plateau tribes sometimes used a 

 curious woven blanket of strips of rabbitskin also 

 widely used in Canada and the Southwest. So far this 

 type of blanket has not been reported for the Plains 

 tribes east of the mountains. 



Everywhere, we find no differences between the robes 

 of men and women except in their decorations. The 

 buffalo robes wxre usually the entire skins with the tail. 

 Among most tribes, the robe was worn horizontally 

 with the tail on the right hand side. Light, durable, 



