Capt. John Smith, in “The True Travels, Adventures, etc.,” Richmond, 1819, Vol. I, page 130, is made to say of the Virginia Indians:
“They adorne themselues most with copper beads and paintings. Their women, some haue their legs, hands, breasts and face cunningly imbrodered with divers workes, as beasts, serpents, artificially wrought into their flesh with blacke spots.”
The Innuit, according to Cook, practiced tattooing perpendicular lines upon the chin of women, and sometimes similar lines extending backward from near the outer portions of the eyes.
Mr. Gatschet reports that very few Klamath men now tattoo their faces, but such as are still observed have but a single line of black running from the middle of the lower lip to the chin. The women have three lines, one from each corner of the mouth and one down over the center of the chin.
The Modoc women tattoo three blue lines, extending perpendicularly from the center and corners of the lower lip to the chin. See Bancroft, Native Races, I, p. 332.
Stephen Powers says (Contrib. N. A. Ethnol., III, p. 20) that the Karol, California, squaws tattoo in blue three narrow fern leaves perpendicularly on the chin, one falling from each corner of the mouth and one in the middle. For this purpose, they are said to employ soot gathered from a stone, mingled with the juice of a certain plant.
The same author reports, page 76: “Nearly every (Hupâ, California) man has ten lines tattooed across the inside of the left arm, about half way between the wrist and the elbow; and in measuring shell-money, he takes the string in his right hand, draws one end over his left thumbnail, and if the other end reaches to the uppermost of the tattoo lines, the five shells are worth $25 in gold or $5 a shell. Of course it is only one in ten thousand that is long enough to reach this high value.”
The same author, on page 96, says: The squaws (Pat´awāt, Cal.) tattoo in blue three narrow pinnate leaves perpendicularly on their chins, and also lines of small dots on the backs of their hands.
He reports, page 148, of the Kas´tel Pomo: The women of this and other tribes of the Coast Range frequently tattoo a rude representation of a tree or other object, covering nearly the whole abdomen and breast.
Of the Wintūns of California the same author says (page 233) that the squaws all tattoo three narrow lines, one falling from each corner of the mouth, and one between.