OF THE INDIANS. 
have made them competent judges of the 
matter, have been of opinion, that their natural 
Colour does not vary from ours; and that the 
darkness of their complexion arises wholly from 
their anointing themselves so frequently with 
unctuous substances, and from their exposing 
themselves so much to the smoke of wood fires, 
and to the burning rays of the sun. But al¬ 
though it is certain that they think a dark com¬ 
plexion very becoming; that they take great 
pains from their earliest age to acquire such an 
one; and that many of them do, in pjoeess of 
time, contrive to vary their original colour very 
considerably ; although it is certain likewise, 
that when first born their colour differs but 
little from ours; yet it appears evident to me, 
that the greater part of them are indebted for 
i 
their different hues to nature alone. I have 
been induced to form this opinion from the 
following consideration, namely ; that those 
children which are born of parents of a dark 
colour are almost universally of the same dark 
cast as those from whom they sprang; Nekig,- 
that is> the Little Otter, an Ottaway chief of 
great notoriety, whose village is on Detroit 
River, and with with whom we have become 
intimately acquainted, has a complexion that 
differs but little from that of an African ; and 
his little boys, who are the very image of the 
father, are just as black as himself With re- 
