Within sight of the Rio Colorado M. Mollhausen encountered some Indians belonging to the three tribes of the Chimehwebs, Cutchanas and Pah-Utahs, who bear a resemblance to each other. Their complexion was dark in colour, their faces striped with bistre, and their black hair hung down their backs in locks which were confined with wet clay. They were of fine stature, and perfectly naked but for a waistband. They bounded forward like deer to meet the travellers, and their expression of countenance was frank, kind, and merry. Their women on the contrary were small, thickset, and clumsy, but their large black eyes and pleasant manners gave them a certain charm.
The travellers also fell in with the Mohawk Indians ([fig. 222]), men of herculean forms who were tattooed from the roots of the hair to the sole of the foot in blue, red, white and yellow, and with eyes that glowed like coals under this layer of paint. Most of them wore vulture’s, magpie’s, or swan’s feathers on the top of their heads, and carried large bows and spears in their hands.
Mr. Catlin made numerous excursions among the Indian tribes of the plains of Columbia and Upper Missouri, and we shall quote presently his remarks concerning the Nayas and Flat-Heads.
Both these nations dwell to the west of the Rocky Mountains, occupying all the country situated round Lower Columbia and Vancouver’s Island. The latter tribe derives its name from the singular custom which exists among them of flattening their children’s heads at their birth.
The Flat-Heads ([fig. 223]) live in a region where very little in the way of food is to be found except fish, and their lives are spent in canoes. The artificial deformity which constitutes the national characteristic is to be found more especially among the women, with whom it is almost universal; but it is only a question of fashion, and does not appear to have any perceptible effect on the functions of the organs, for persons whose heads have been compressed seem as intelligent as those who have not undergone this strange operation.
222.—MOHAWK INDIANS.
Mr. Catlin says:—