“It was formerly supposed that the Americans were without beards, and certainly there are many among them who have neither beard nor hair on any part of their person except the head. But the Indians who inhabit the torrid zone and South America, have generally a small beard which becomes longer by shaving; and among the Patagonians there are many who have beards. A late traveller (Temple) asserts that the Chiriguano Indians of the province of Tarija are beardless, without stating any opinion as to this being natural or the effect of plucking out the hair. Almost all the Indians near Mexico, and some on the North West coast, wear moustachios. An inference has been drawn that the Indians have a larger quantity of beard in proportion to their distance from the equator. The deficiency of beard does not exclusively belong to the Americans, nor is it by any means a certain sign of degeneracy; for some beardless races, such as the negroes of Congo, are very robust and of colossal size.”[3]
Another description of Indian character we borrow from Adair’s “History of the Aborigines of North America.” We quote it with great pleasure, as fully bearing out our own argument with respect to the physical capacity of the North American Indians, and as being the testimony of a man who resided long among them.
“As the American Indians,” he observes, “are of a reddish or copper colour, so, in general, they are strong, well proportioned in body and limbs, surprisingly active and nimble, and hardy in their own way of living.
“They are ingenious, witty, cunning and deceitful; very faithful indeed to their own tribes, but privately dishonourable and mischievous to the Europeans and Christians. Their being honest and harmless to each other, may be through fear of resentment and reprisal, which is unavoidable in case of any injury. They are very close and retentive of their secrets; never forget injuries; and are revengeful of blood to a degree of distraction. They are timorous and consequently cautious; very jealous of encroachments from their Christian neighbours; and likewise content with freedom in every turn of fortune. They are possessed of a strong comprehensive judgement, can form surprisingly crafty schemes, and conduct them with equal caution, silence, and address; they admit none but distinguished warriors and old beloved men, into their councils. They are slow, but very persevering, in their undertakings; commonly temperate in their eating, but excessively immoderate in drinking. They often transform themselves by liquor, into the likeness of mad foaming bears. The women, in general, are of a mild, amiable, and soft disposition; exceedingly modest in their behaviour, and very seldom noisy in the single or married state.
“The men are expert in the use of fire arms—in shooting the bow and throwing the feathered dart into the flying enemy. They resemble the lynx with their sharp penetrating black eye, and are exceedingly swift of foot, especially in a long chase. They will stretch away through the rough woods, by the bare track, for two or three hundred miles, in pursuit of a flying enemy, with the continued speed and eagerness of a staunch pack of bloodhounds, till they shed blood. When they have allayed this burning thirst, they return home at their leisure, unless they chance to be pursued, as is sometimes the case; whence the traders say, ‘that an Indian is never in a hurry, but when the Devil is at his heels.’
“It is remarkable that there are no deformed Indians; however, they are generally weaker and smaller bodied, between the tropics, than in higher latitudes; but not in an equal proportion: for though the Chikkasah and Choktah countries have not been long divided from each other, as appears by the similarity of their language, as well as other things; yet the Chikkasah are exceedingly taller and stronger bodied than the latter, though their country is only two degrees farther north. Such a small difference of latitude, in so healthy a region, could not make so wide a difference in the constitution of their bodies. The former are a comely, pleasant looking people; their faces are tolerably round, contrary to the visage of the others, which inclines much to flatness, as is the case with most of the other Indian Americans. The lips of the Indians, in general, are thin.
“Their eyes are small, sharp, and black; and their hair is lank, coarse, and darkish. I never saw any with curled hair, but one, in the Choktah country, where was also another with red hair; probably, they were a mixture of the French and Indians. Both sexes pluck all the hair off their bodies with a kind of tweezers, made formerly of shells, now of middle-sized wire, in the shape of a gunworm; which being twisted round a small stick, and the ends thereof fastened therein, after being properly tempered, keeps its form: holding this Indian razor between their forefinger and thumb, they deplume themselves after the manner of the Jewish novitiate priests and proselytes.
“Their chief dress is very simple, like that of the patriarchal age; of choice, many of their old head men wear a long wide frock, made of the skins of wild beasts. They seem quite easy and indifferent in every various scene of life, as if they were utterly divested of passions and of the sense of feeling. Martial virtue and not riches is their invariable standard for preferment; for they neither esteem nor despise any of their people one jot more or less on account of riches or dress. They compare both these to paint on a warrior’s face; because it incites others to a spirit of martial benevolence for their country, and pleases his own fancy, and the eyes of spectators for a little time, but is sweated off, while he is performing his war dances, or is defaced by the change of weather.
“They formerly wore shirts made of dressed deer-skins for their summer visiting dress; but their winter hunting clothes were long and shaggy, made of the skins of panthers, bucks, bears, beavers, and otters; the fleshly side outwards, sometimes doubled, and always softened like velvet cloth, though they retained their fur and hair. The needles and thread they used formerly, (and now at times) were fish bones, or the horns and bones of deer, rubbed sharp, and deer’s sinews, and a sort of hemp that grows among them spontaneously, in rich open lands. The women’s dress consists only in a broad softened skin, or several small skins sewed together, which they wrap and tie round their waist, reaching a little below their knees: in cold weather they wrap themselves in the softened skins of buffalo calves, with the wintery shagged wool inward, never forgetting to anoint and tie up their hair except in their time of mourning. The men wear for ornament and for the convenience of hunting, thin deer skin boots well smoked, that reach so high up their thighs, as with their jackets to secure them from the brambles and braky thickets. They sew them about five inches from the edges, which are formed into tassels, to which they fasten fawn’s trotters and small pieces of tinkling metal, or wild turkey cock’s spurs. The Braves used to fasten the like to their warpipes, with the addition of a piece of an enemy’s scalp, with a tuft of long hair hanging down from the middle of the stem, each of them painted red: and they still observe that old custom, only they choose bell buttons to give a greater sound.
“The young Indian men and women, through a fondness of their ancient dress, wrap a piece of cloth round them, that has a near resemblance to the Roman toga, or prætexta. It is about a fathom square, bordered seven or eight quarters deep, to make a shining cavalier of the Beau Monde, and to keep out both heat and cold. With this frantic apparel the red heroes swaddle themselves, when they are waddling whooping and prancing it away around the reputed holy fire. In a sweating condition they will thus incommode themselves frequently for a whole night, actuated by the same principle of pride which actuates the Spaniard to wear his winter cloak in summer.…