76 
portion of the year did cause considerable hardship, and operated in 
no slight degree to increase the death rate. 
Many primitive peoples, especially in warm and temperate coun- 
tries, have regarded clothing more as a method of adornment than 
as a covering required by modesty, or for protection against the 
climatic conditions. Several writers have, therefore, ascribed its 
origin to a natural tendency of man to decorate his person. Whether 
this theory be true or not, the Indians of Canada certainly did not 
neglect its resthetic possibilities. Men generally adorned themselves 
more than women, a phenomenon common enough among primitive 
people, if contrary to civilized usage. ^ Even the everyday dress 
normally had decorative fringes, and for ceremonial occasions the 
Indians wore exceedingly elaborate costumes. The most distinctive 
features were, probably, feather head-dresses, and a kind of embroid- 
ery of dyed and undyed porcupine quills, goose quills, or moose hair. 
Neither of these forms of decoration extended to the Pacific or Arctic 
oceans, although the feather head-dress had a wide vogue over the 
two Americas, and quill work reached far down into the United 
States. Robes painted with realistic scenes depicting incidents in 
the lives of the wearers, usually war exploits or dreams, were jDeculiar 
to the plains’ tribes; the paintings on the robes of the eastern Indians 
sometimes represented crests or clan emblems, like the Scottish 
tartans. The Eskimo and some adjacent tribes in tlie north pro- 
duced pleasing effects by insertion of differently coloured furs, or 
by striped bands of dyed and undyed skin ; and a dancing head-dress 
characteristic of certain Eskimo groups was a cap of variegated fur 
or leather surmounted by a loon’s bill. Peculiar to the Pacific coast 
were the painted hats already mentioned, and the beautifully pat- 
terned blankets of goat’s wool mingled with cedar bark. 
Hunting peoples naturally tend to adorn themselves with 
trophies of the chase. The Eskimo attached bear teeth and bear 
claws to their clothing, several Indian tribes wore bear-claw neck- 
laces, and some Pacific Coast natives used bear-claw head-dresses 
on ceremonial occasions. The Slaves and Dogribs of the Alackenzie 
basin delighted in head-bands of leather embroidered with 
porcupine quills, and embellished with animal claws and the white 
1 The reasons are often obscure; sometimes they appear to be associated with the status of women 
and the division of labour. 
