Fig. 73.—Patterns of woman’s pantaloons.
Boots and breeches united in this way so as to form pantaloons are peculiar to the west of America, where they are universally worn from the Mackenzie district westward and southward. We have no specimens of women’s leg coverings from the Mackenzie district, but Petitot[231] describes them thus: “Le pantalon * * * fait corps avec la chaussure.” In the east the women always wear breeches separate from the boots, which usually differ from those of the men in their size and length, often reaching to the hips.[232]
Fig. 74.—Pattern of stocking.
[Stockings.]—
Next to the skin on the feet and legs the men wear stockings of deerskin, usually of soft, rather long-haired skin, with the hair in. These are usually in three pieces, the leg, 1, toe piece, 2, and sole, 3 (see diagram, Fig. 74). A straight strip about 1 inch wide often runs round the foot between the sole and the other pieces. Stockings of this pattern, but made of very thick winter deerskin, are substituted for the outer boots when deer-hunting in winter in the dry snow, especially when snowshoes are used. They are warm; the flesh side sheds the snow well and the thick hair acts as a sort of wadding which keeps the feet from being galled by the bars and strings of the snowshoes. Many of the deer-hunters in 1883 made rough buskins of this pattern out of the skins of freshly killed deer simply dried, without further preparation.