North-West Continent of America. 



'fiies, which would otherwise be very troublesome. Whe- 

 ther circumcision be practised among them, I cannot pre- 

 tend to say, but the appearance of it was general among 

 those whom I saw. 



Their ornaments consist of gorgets, bracelets for the 

 arms and wrists, made of wood, horn, or bone, belts, 

 garters, and a kind of band to go round the head, com- 

 posed of strips of leather of one inch and an half broad, 

 embroidered with porcupine quills, and stuck round with 

 the claws of bears or wild fowl inverted, to which are sus- 

 pended a few short thongs of the skin of an animal that re- 

 sembles the ermine, in the form of a tassel. Their cinc- 

 tures and garters are formed of porcupine quills woven 

 with sinews, in a style of peculiar skill and neatness : they 

 have others of different materials, and more ordinary 

 workmanship ; and to" both they attach a long fringe of 

 strings of leather, worked round with hair of various co- 

 lours. Their mittens are also suspended from the neck in 

 a position convenient for the reception of the hands. 



Their lodges are of a very simple structure : a few poles 

 supported by a fork, and forming a semicircle at the bot- 

 tom, with some branches or a piece of bark as a covering, 

 constitutes the whole of their native architecture. They 

 build two of these huts facing each other, and make the 

 fire between them. The furniture harmonises with the 

 buildings : they have a few dishes of wood, bark, or horn ; 

 the vessels in which they cook their victuals, are in the 

 shape of a gourd, narrow at the top and wide at the bot- 

 tom, and of watape*, fabricated in such a manner as to 

 hold water, which is made to boil by putting a succession 

 of red-hot stones into it. These vessels contain from two, 

 to six gallons. They have a number of small leather bags 

 to hold their embroidered work, lines, and nets. They 

 always keep a large quantity of the fibres of willow bark, 

 which they work into thread on their thighs. Their nets 

 are from three to forty fathoms in length, and from thir- 

 teen to thirty-six meshes in depth. The short, deep ones 

 they set in the eddy current of rivers, and the long ones 

 in the lakes. They likewise make lines of the sinews of 

 the rein-deer, and manufacture their hooks from wood ? 



• * Watape is the name given to the divided roots of the spruce-fir, 

 which the natives weave into a degree of compactness that renders it 

 capable of containing a fluid. The different parts of the bark canoes 

 ' are also sewed together with this kind of filament. 



i 



