A General History of the Fur Trade. 85 



them with such cruelty as sometimes to occasion their death. 

 They are frequently objects of traffic; and the father pos- 

 sesses the right of disposing of his daughter.* The men 

 in general extract their beards, though some of them are seen 

 to prefer a bushy, black beard, to a smooth chin. They cut 

 their hair in various forms, or leave it in a long, natural 

 flow, according as their caprice or fancy suggests. The 

 women always wear it in great length, and some of them 

 are very attentive to its arrangement. If they at any time 

 appear despoiled of their tresses, it is to be esteemed aproof 

 of the husband's jealousy, and is considered as a severer 

 punishment than manual correction. Both sexes have blue 

 or black bars, or from one to four straight lines on their 

 cheeks or forehead, to distinguish the tribe to which they 

 belong. These marks are either tatooed, or made by draw- 

 ing a thread, dipped in the necessary colour, beneath the 

 skin. 



There are no people more attentive to the comforts of 

 their dress, or less anxious respecting its exterior appear- 

 ance. In the winter it is composed of the skins of deer, 

 and their fawns, and dressed as fine as any chamois leather, 

 in the hair. In the summer their apparel is the same, ex- 

 cept that it is prepared without the hair. Their shoes and 

 leggins are sewn together, the latter reaching upwards to the 

 middle, and being supported by a belt, under which a small 

 piece of leather is drawn to cover the private parts, the ends 

 of which fall down both before and behind. In the shoes they 

 put the hair of the moose or rein-deer, with additional pieces 

 of leather as socks. The shirt or coat, when girted round 

 the waist, reaches to the middle of the thigh, and the mit- 

 tens are sewed to the sleeves, or are suspended by strings 

 from the shoulders. A ruff or tippet surrounds the neck, 

 and the skin of the head of the deer forms a curious kind of 

 cap. A robe, made of several deer or fawn skins sewed to- 

 gether, covers the whole. This dress is worn single or 

 double, but always in the winter, with the hair within and 

 without. Thus arrayed, a Chepewyan will lay himself down 

 on the ice in the middle of a lake, and repose in comfort ; 

 though he will sometimes find a difficulty in the morning 

 to disencumber himself from the snow drifted on him dur- 

 ing the night. If in his passage he should be in want of pro- 

 vision, he cuts an hole in the ice, when he seldom fails of 



* They do not, however, sell them as slaves, but as companions to those 

 who are supposed to live more comfortably than themselves. 



