W. W. H. Davis (b) recounts that “in 1680 the Rio Grande Pueblos informed the Spanish officers that they had brought with them two crosses, one painted red, which signified war, and the other white, which indicated peace, and they might take their choice between the two.”
Capt. de Lamothe Cadillac (b), writing in the year 1696 of the Algonquians of the Great Lake region near Mackinac, etc., describes their decorations for war as follows:
On the day of departure the warriors dress in their best. They color their hair red; they paint their faces red and black with much skill and taste, as well as the whole of their bodies. Some have headdresses with the tail feathers of eagles or other birds; others have them decorated with the teeth of wild beasts, such as the wolf or tiger [wild cat]. Several adorn their heads, in lieu of hats, with helmets bearing the horns of deer, roebuck, or buffalo.
Schoolcraft (r) says that blue signifies peace among the Indians of the Pueblo of Tesuque.
The Dakota bands lately at Grand river agency had the practice of painting the face red from the eyes down to the chin when going to war.
The Absaroka or Crow Indians generally paint the forehead red when on the warpath. This distinction of the Crows is also noted by the Dakota in recording pictographic narratives of encounters with the Crows.
Haywood (e) says of the Cherokees:
When going to war their hair is combed and annointed with bear’s grease and the red root, Sanguinaria canadensis, and they adorn it with feathers of various beautiful colors, besides copper and iron rings, and sometimes wampum or peak in the ears; and they paint their faces all over as red as vermilion, making a circle of black about one eye and another circle of white about the other.
H. H. Bancroft (e) tells that when a Modoc warrior paints his face black before going into battle it means victory or death, and that he will not survive a defeat. In the same volume, p. 105, he says that when a Thlinkit arms himself for war he paints his face and powders his hair a brilliant red. He then ornaments his head with a white eagle feather as a token of stern, vindictive determination.
Mr. Dorsey reports that when the Osage men go to steal horses from the enemy they paint their faces with charcoal. [Possibly this may be for disguise, on the same principle that burglars use black crape.] The same authority gives the following description of the Osage paint for war parties: