79 
inents it was supplanted in popular esteem by disks and beads of 
shell, which were manufactured by coastal tribes from the Maritime 
Provinces southward and traded far into the interior. In the six- 
teenth century two varieties of beads prevailed in eastern Canada, 
a white, and a violet or purple. The white typified to the Iroquois 
and some adjacent tribes, peace, prosperity, and good-will; the 
purple, war, disaster, and death. Pesides their ornamental and 
symbolic uses they had a definite exchange value, and became a regu- 
lar currency among all the Iiulians east of the jMississippi river in 
the United States, and of the Great Lakes in Canada. 
Tattooing as a means of decoration prevailed throughout the 
northern parts of Canada, and among all the tribes of the Pacific 
coast; it was rarely practised by the plains’ Indians, and in eastern 
Canada by a few tribes only, the Iroquoians of Ontario, the Naskapi, 
and the Cree. The usual method was to pass an awl under the skin 
and draw through the puncture a thread of sinew covered with 
charcoal or soot. The Haida (who used a red pigment also), the 
Tahltan, and probably other west coast tribes employed a puncturing 
process closely resembling that of the Iroquoian tribes of Ontario;^ 
whereas the Naskapi of the Labrador peninsula rubbed the pigment 
into small incisions made with a piece of flint.- The first two 
processes are clearly described by Franklin: “Tattooing is almost 
universal among the Crees. The women are in general content with 
having one or two lines drawn from the corners of the mouth towards 
the angles of the lower jaw; but some of the men have their bodies 
covered with a great variety of lines and figures. It seems to be 
consiflered by most rather as a proof of courage than an ornament, 
the operation being very painful, and, if the figures are numerous 
and intricate, lasting three days. The lines on the face are formed 
by dexterously running an awl under the cuticle, and then drawing 
a cord, dipped in charcoal and water, through the canal thus formed. 
The punctures on the body are formed by needles of various sizes 
set in a frame. A number of hawk bells attached to this frame 
serve by their noise to cover the suppressed groans of the sufferer, 
and, probably for the same reason, the process is accompanied by 
1 Dawson. G. M. : " Rnpoii. on the Queen Clinrlotte Islands”; Geol. Surv., Canada, Rept. of Pioe. 
1878-79, pt. R. p. 108 (Montreal, 1880). Teit, J, : Unpublished Notes, '* Jesuit Relations”, vol. i, p. 279. 
2 Hind, H. Y. : “Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula”; vol. ii, p. 97 f (London, 
1863), 
Tlie Tahltan and the Irorpioi.s made the imnetiiros singly by tapping a bone awl with a light 
mallet. 
