In ancient times, the dress of the Indians was made of the skins of animals and feathers. This clothing, they say, was not only warmer, but lasted much longer than any woollen goods they have since purchased of the white people. They can dress any skin, even that of the buffaloe, so that it becomes quite soft and supple, and a good buffaloe or bear skin blanket will serve them many years without wearing out. Beaver and raccoon skin blankets are also pliant, warm and durable; they sew together as many of those skins as is necessary, carefully setting the hair or fur all the same way, so that the blanket or covering be smooth, and the rain do not penetrate, but run off. In wearing these fur blankets they are regulated by the weather; if it is cold and dry the fur is placed next the body, but in warm and wet weather, they have it outside. Some made themselves long frocks of fine fur, and the women’s petticoats in the winter season were also made of them, otherwise of dressed deer skins, the same as their shirts, leggings and shoes. They say that shoes made of dressed bear skins, with the hair on and turned inside, are very warm, and in dry weather, durable. With the large rib bones of the elk and buffaloe they shaved the hair off the skins they dressed, and even now, they say that they can clean a skin as well with a well prepared rib-bone as with a knife.
The blankets made from feathers were also warm and durable. They were the work of the women, particularly of the old, who delight in such work, and indeed, in any work which shews that they are able to do their parts and be useful to society. It requires great patience, being the most tedious kind of work I have ever seen them perform, yet they do it in a most ingenious manner. The feathers, generally those of the turkey and goose, are so curiously arranged and interwoven together with thread or twine, which they prepare from the rind or bark of the wild hemp and nettle, that ingenuity and skill cannot be denied them. They show the same talent and much forethought in making their Happis, the bands with which they carry their bags and other burdens; they make these very strong and lasting.
The present dress of the Indians is well known to consist in blankets, plain or ruffled shirts and leggings for the men, and petticoats for the women, made of cloth, generally red, blue, or black. The wealthy adorn themselves besides with ribands or gartering of various colours, beads and silver broaches. These ornaments are arranged by the women, who, as well as the men, know how to dress themselves in style. Those of the men principally consist in the painting of themselves, their head and face principally, shaving or good clean garments, silver arm spangles and breast plates, and a belt or two of wampum hanging to their necks. The women, at the expense of their husbands or lovers, line their petticoat and blue or scarlet cloth blanket or covering with choice ribands of various colours, or with gartering, on which they fix a number of silver broaches, or small round buckles. They adorn their leggings in the same manner; their mocksens, (properly Maxen, or according to the English pronunciation Moxen), are embroidered in the neatest manner, with coloured porcupine quills, and are besides, almost entirely covered with various trinkets; they have, moreover, a number of little bells and brass thimbles fixed round their ancles, which, when they walk, make a tinkling noise, which is heard at some distance; this is intended to draw the attention of those who pass by, that they may look at and admire them.
The women make use of vermilion in painting themselves for dances, but they are very careful and circumspect in applying the paint, so that it does not offend or create suspicion in their husbands; there is a mode of painting which is left entirely to loose women and prostitutes.
As I was once resting in my travels at the house of a trader who lived at some distance from an Indian town, I went in the morning to visit an Indian acquaintance and friend of mine. I found him engaged in plucking out his beard, preparatory to painting himself for a dance which was to take place the ensuing evening. Having finished his head dress, about an hour before sunset, he came up, as he said, to see me, but I and my companions judged that he came to be seen. To my utter astonishment, I saw three different paintings or figures on one and the same face. He had, by his great ingenuity and judgment in laying on and shading the different colours, made his nose appear, when we stood directly in front of him, as if it were very long and narrow, with a round knob at the end, much like the upper part of a pair of tongs. On one cheek there was a red round spot, about the size of an apple, and the other was done in the same manner with black. The eye-lids, both the upper and lower ones, were reversed in the colouring. When we viewed him in profile on one side, his nose represented the beak of an eagle, with the bill rounded and brought to a point, precisely as those birds have it, though the mouth was somewhat open. The eye was astonishingly well done, and the head, upon the whole, appeared tolerably well, shewing a great deal of fierceness. When we turned round to the other side, the same nose now resembled the snout of a pike, with the mouth so open, that the teeth could be seen. He seemed much pleased with his execution, and having his looking-glass with him, he contemplated his work, seemingly with great pride and exultation. He asked me how I liked it? I answered that if he had done the work on a piece of board, bark, or anything else, I should like it very well and often look at it. But, asked he, why not so as it is? Because I cannot see the face that is hidden under these colours, so as to know who it is. Well, he replied, I must go now, and as you cannot know me to-day, I will call to-morrow morning before you leave this place. He did so, and when he came back he was washed clean again.
Thus, for a single night’s frolic, a whole day is spent in what they call dressing, in which each strives to outdo the other.
When the men paint their thighs, legs and breast, they, generally, after laying on a thin shading coat of a darkish colour, and sometimes of a whitish clay, dip their fingers’ ends in black or red paint, and drawing it on with their outspread fingers, bring the streaks to a serpentine form. The garments of some of their principal actors are singular, and decorated with such a number of gewgaws and trinkets, that it is impossible to give a precise description of them. Neither are they all alike in taste, every one dressing himself according to his fancy, or the custom of the tribe to which he belongs. While the women, as I have already said, have thimbles and little bells rattling at their ancles, the men have deers’ claws fixed to their braced garters or knee bands, and also to their shoes, for the same purpose; for they consider jingling and rattling as indispensably necessary to their performances in the way of dancing.
The notion formerly entertained that the Indians are beardless by nature and have no hair on their bodies, appears now to be exploded and entirely laid aside. I cannot conceive how it is possible for any person to pass three weeks only among those people, without seeing them pluck out their beards, with tweezers made expressly for that purpose. Before the Europeans came into the country, their apparatus for performing this work, consisted of a pair of muscle shells, sharpened on a gritty stone, which answered very well, being somewhat like pincers; but since they can obtain wire, of which that of brass is preferred, they make themselves tweezers, which they always carry with them in their tobacco-pouch, wherever they go, and when at leisure, they pluck out their beards or the hair above their foreheads. This they do in a very quick manner, much like the plucking of a fowl, and the oftener they pluck out their hair, the finer it grows afterwards, so that at last there appears hardly any, the whole having been rooted out. The principal reasons which they give for thus plucking out their beards and the hair next to their foreheads, are that they may have a clean skin to lay the paint on, when they dress for their festivals or dances, and to facilitate the tattooing themselves, a custom formerly much in use among them, especially with those who had distinguished themselves by their valour, and acquired celebrity. They say that either painting or tattooing on a hairy face or body would have a disgusting appearance.
As late as the year 1762, when I resided at Tuscorawas on the Muskingum, tattooing was still practised by some Indians; a valiant chief of that village, named Wawundochwalend, desirous of having another name given him, had the figure of a water-lizard engraved or tattooed on his face, above the chin, when he received the name Twakachshawsu, the water-lizard. The process of tattooing, which I once saw performed, is quickly done, and does not seem to give much pain. They have poplar bark in readiness burnt and reduced to a powder, the figures that are to be tattooed are marked or designed on the skin; the operator with a small stick, rather larger than a common match, to the end of which some sharp needles are fastened, quickly pricks over the whole so that blood is drawn, then a coat of this powder is laid and left on to dry. Before the whites came into this country, they scarified themselves for this purpose with sharp flint stones, or pricked themselves with the sharp teeth of a fish.
In the year 1742, a veteran warrior of the Lenape nation and Monsey tribe, renowned among his own people for his bravery and prowess, and equally dreaded by their enemies, joined the Christian Indians who then resided at this place.[187] This man, who was then at an advanced age, had a most striking appearance, and could not be viewed without astonishment. Besides that his body was full of scars, where he had been struck and pierced by the arrows of the enemy, there was not a spot to be seen, on that part of it which was exposed to view, but what was tattooed over with some drawing relative to his achievements, so that the whole together struck the beholder with amazement and terror. On his whole face, neck, shoulders, arms, thighs and legs, as well as on his breast and back, were represented scenes of the various actions and engagements he had been in; in short, the whole of his history was there deposited, which was well known to those of his nation, and was such that all who heard it thought it could never be surpassed by man.[188] Far from, murdering those who were defenceless or unarmed, his generosity, as well as his courage and skill in the art of war, was acknowledged by all. When, after his conversion, he was questioned about his warlike feats, he frankly and modestly answered, “That being now taken captive by Jesus Christ, it did not become him to relate the deeds he had done while in the service of the evil spirit; but that he was willing to give an account in the manner in which he had been conquered.” At his baptism, on the 23d of December 1742, he received the name of Michael, which he preserved until his death, which happened on the 23rd of July 1756. He led the life of a true Christian, and was always ready and willing to relate the history of his conversion, which I heard myself from his own mouth. His age, when he died, was supposed to be about eighty years.