Indians eagerly accept any cast off garment which a white man has worn, and they often procure the clothing offered for trade. Trousers are in much demand. Coats are deemed great prizes, especially in the wet seasons when the moisture would certainly ruin their own clothing by causing the hair to fall off or totally destroy the shape of the tanned skin garments. For underclothing the Indian man uses an additional suit of ordinary clothing or else dons a shirt procured from the trader. Drawers are rarely worn.
That these people are little susceptible to the effects of cold may be inferred from the fact that I have seen them come to the trading post of Fort Chimo in the middle of winter when the thermometer had not registered higher than 20° below zero for weeks, with no protection for their legs except a pair of old buckskin leggings so short that the bottom did not reach within 3 or 4 inches of the dilapidated moccasins. The feet were, so far as could be ascertained, chiefly protected by a wrapping of old baling cloth covered with a pair of moccasins which no white man would have been seen wearing. I observed also that no additional clothing was purchased for the return trip.
The garments worn by the women in the warmer season consists of thin dresses of calico purchased from the traders. Thin shawls serve to protect the head and shoulders. The feet are incased in moccasins. Some of the women are able to purchase dresses of cloth, and these are cut into a semblance of the dresses worn by the women of civilized countries. It is not rare to see a woman wearing a skirt made from the tanned skin of the deer. The lower portions of the skirt are often fancifully ornamented with lines and stripes of paint of various colors, extending entirely around the garment. A piece of baling cloth is often fashioned into a skirt and worn.
The females appear to be less susceptible to the sudden changes of the summer weather than the men. At least they exhibit less concern about the thickness of their apparel. It is not unusual to see a woman whose only clothing appears to be a thin dress of calico. During the winter the women dress in the most comfortable skins (Fig. 100), blankets, shawls, comforts, leggings, and moccasins. During exceptionally severe weather, they appear as traveling wardrobes, doubtless carrying their all on their back, and in some instances presenting a most comical appearance as, loaded with clothing of most miscellaneous character, they waddle over the snow. The winter cap is similar to that worn by the men, but is not so peaked. It is an object on which they expend a great amount of labor. The material is usually a kind of cloth locally known as Hudson bay cloth, either red, dark blue, light blue, or black. The caps of the men and women are usually made from the better grades of this cloth, while the dresses of the women and the leggings of the men are of the inferior grades.
Fig. 100.—Nenenot woman in full winter dress.
If the cap is to be all one color, in which case it is always red, the cloth is cut in two pieces only, and put together so as to produce a cup-shape. Sometimes five or six pieces are cut from two or three different colors of cloth and the strips sewed together. Over the seams white tape is sewed to set off the colors. In the center of the strip is a rosette, cross, or other design worked with beads, and around the rim rows of beads variously arranged.
The body is covered with a heavy robe made of two deerskins sewed together. This robe is often plain, and when ornamented designs are painted only on the bottom of the skirt. These robes are always of skins with the hair on. The flesh side is often rubbed with red ocher while the extreme edge may be painted with a narrow stripe of the same mixed with the viscid matter obtained from the roe of a species of fish. The edge stripe of paint is always of a darker brown than the other colors from the admixture of that substance with the earth.
This garment is put upon the body in a manner impossible to describe and difficult to understand even when witnessed. It is held together by small loops of sinew or deerskin. A belt around the waist keeps it up.