240
137
241
242
In the same plate, letter d, is a pair of Sioux (and in letter e, of Chippeway) snow shoes, which are used in the deep snows of the winter, under the Indians’ feet, to buoy him up as he runs in pursuit of his game. The hoops or frames of these are made of elastic wood, and the webbing, of strings of rawhide, which form such a resistance to the snow, as to carry them over without sinking into it; and enabling them to come up with their game, which is wallowing through the drifts, and easily overtaken; as in the buffalo hunt, in plate 109, Volume I.
Of the portraits of chiefs and others I have painted amongst the Chippeways at this place, two distinguished young men will be seen in plates [241], [242]. The first by the name of Ka-bes-kunk (he who travels everywhere), the other, Ka-be-mub-be (he who sits everywhere), both painted at full length, in full dress, and just as they were adorned and equipped, even to a quill and a trinket.
The first of these two young men is, no doubt, one of the most remarkable of his age to be found in the tribe. Whilst he was standing for his portrait, which was in one of the officer’s quarters in the Fort, where there were some ten or fifteen of his enemies the Sioux, seated on the floor around the room; he told me to take particular pains in representing eight quills which were arranged in his head-dress, which he said stood for so many Sioux scalps that he had taken with his left hand, in which he was grasping his war-club, with which hand he told me he was in the habit of making all his blows.