9 
DESCRIPTIVE CHARACTERS 
The medium to dark brown colour of the skin of the face was in general 
not noticeably different from that of other bands of Indian inhabitants 
of Manitoba. Those at Island lake were darker than those at Gods lake, 
and at Oxford House several of the men were relatively so light in com- 
plexion that they must certainly have been part-breeds. No colour scale 
was employed. 
The hair was black, straight, and of medium coarseness; in some 
females it was almost fine; in only relatively few could it be described as 
very coarse. In one man (O.H. 36), obviously a breed, it was brownish. 
In seven males the hair immediately over the region of the forehead was 
wavy or curly; of these, five were at Island lake (I.L. 46, 57, 66, 71, 74), 
one at Gods lake (G.L. 17), and one at Oxford House (O.H. 25). One of 
these is stated to be of white blood (G.L, 17) and one had a beard and 
moustache, which throws doubt upon his racial purity (I.L, 46). There 
is nothing to indicate mixed blood in the other five. Five of the seven were 
over 60 years of age. 
Many of the younger men shave at times, not probably so much 
because they have occasion to — for the hairs on their lips and chins are 
few — as from a desire to imitate the white man. A number of men had 
sparse moustaches and some had also sparse beards; some had even 
moderately strong growths of beard and moustache. Only three men are 
recorded as having hair on the cheeks; all three were at Oxford House 
(O.H. 36, 59, 3). Only four persons were at all bald: one a very old woman 
(I.L. 85), one a young man of 28 years (O.H. 14), and two were old men 
(O.H. 3, 44). In each of these the bald patch was on the crown of the 
head. As is indicated by table I, page 17, it is more than likely that all 
four were of mixed blood, because of these three men two had grey eyes 
and the third had a growth of hair on his cheeks (by omission no record 
was made of the colour of this man's eyes). Moreover, the biparietal- 
bizygomatic indices of the three men are below the mean for Oxford 
House, which is 95-9, and in the case of the old woman this index is 89-5, 
which in itself almost proclaims her to be not purely Indian. This view 
is substantiated in her case by the observations that her biparietal- 
bizygomatic index is lower than those of all the other fifteen Island Lake 
old women, but one; her mouth the smallest, but one; and of one hundred 
and twelve Island Lake women and old women, whose eyes were examined, 
she was one of the five having medium brown eyes. 
No one of under forty years of age was observed to have a white hair on 
the head; between the ages of forty and fifty several presented a few 
white hairs; it was unusual for any, of either sex, to pass the age of sixty 
without displaying numerous white hairs. After this age even the scanty 
beards and moustaches of the men had some white hairs. 
Noses were of all shapes, but the clean-cut, prominently aquiline type, 
so usually depicted, was in a very small minority; relatively few had high 
bridges. Though many were convex, the convexity was of mild degree. 
The point or tip of many noses was somewhat enlarged, with the result 
that a slight concavity of the bridge preceded the enlargement, and this 
is responsible for many of the concavities indicated in the chart. In one 
Island Lake woman the nose was definitely retrouss^. 
