82 
The aborigines of the JJoniinion never indulged in the elaborate 
coiffures that characterize so many African peoples. Women 
generally divided the hair into two braids that fell over the shoulders; 
occasionally they left it unbraiflcd, or bound it into a single pigtail 
down the back. IVlen allowed themselves more liberty. On the 
Pacific coast the majority, unless they were medicine-men, cut it 
short; on the plains they sometimes shaved it off around the sides, 
but always left the scalp-lock, a long braid that depended from the 
crown. Among the eastern Indians each man followed his own 
inclination. Thus we read in the Jesuit Relations: “some shave the 
hair, others cultivate it; some have half the head bare, others the 
back of the head; the hair of some is raised up on their heads, that 
of others hangs tdown scantily upon each temple.”^ Here and there 
in this region certain styles became fasliionable for a time, and were 
adopted by the majority of a tribe or community. In the eai'ly days 
of colonization one tribe wore upstanding locks “like the bristles 
of a wild boar”, whence the French-Canadians nicknamed the people 
Hurons, the “bristly savages.”- The Eskimo in the north allowed 
the hair to grow loose, or cut it short, according to their fancy; their 
women usually wore it in two braids, but those of the ^Mackenzie delta 
preferred a tonsure for their husbands, and, for themselves, a top- 
knot, which was rarefy seen elsewdiere in the Dominion. Every tribe 
anointed the hair wdth liberal quantities of grease or oil.‘^ The 
plains’ Indians made brushes of twigs or bundles of porcupine quills. 
Other natives used combs of wood, bone, or ivory; but the most 
usual comb w'as the fingers. East of the Rockies no costume was 
quite complete that did not include a few feathers stuck at jaunty 
angles in the hair. 
Oontact wdth Europeans quickly revolutionizerl both dress and 
ornament among the aborigines. Styles changed, woollen and cotton 
goods partly replaced fur and leather, and some of the old furs 
ceased to be used for clothing, but found their w'ay to the white 
man’s markets. Beads and silk embroidery gradually replaced 
embroidery of porcupine quills and moose hair, metal ornaments 
superseded ornaments of shell. The aborigines followed Euroi^ean 
1 “ Jesuit Relations,” voi. i, ]j. 281 (1610-1613). 
~ Ibid., voL xxxviii, p. 249 (1652-16.53). 
3 The Kutehin of the upper Yukon plasterofi so much grease euuI ochre on their hair that their 
heads leaned forward with the weight. 
