Later the hair of the dog and mountain goat’s wool were spun together and woven into blankets on simple native looms. Some of these blankets were very beautiful, with patterns all their own, representing, as in the case of the northern tribes, the totems of the wearers. Of course, in later years the common garment was the “Indian blanket,” sold by the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Chiefs and people of high rank wore the skins of animals, some of which were dressed and tanned by native methods. Some were clothed in the most beautiful furs—the priceless sea-otter, the bear, and other animals—and were thus recognized as great chiefs or great hunters.
All were fond of ornaments, such as ear-rings, necklaces, bracelets, finger rings, ankle bangles and nose jewels. Some wore large rings in their noses, while slaves often had a long stick through the hole in their noses. There was also the remarkable lip button or labret, worn by perforating the lower lips of the females, which insertion was enlarged with increasing age, from one to three and a half inches long and from one-quarter to one and a half inches wide. These latter were only worn by people of high rank.
Long shells like goose quills, called toothpick shells, about three inches long, taken from the salt water, were much used as ornaments. They were strung together and sold by the fathom, five fathoms being reckoned the price of a slave.
The men of nearly all the Coast tribes had the lobe of the ear perforated, this being done in early childhood, and frequently in olden times you would see them with large rings or large pieces of abalone shell hanging to their noses.
Ear-rings were worn in a series of perforations in the lobe of the ear. We have seen them with three and four smaller pieces of abalone shell at the upper part of the ear, or a very large one at the lower part of the ear. At a more recent date these were replaced by ear-rings of silver and gold of various designs, like their white friends.
Painting and Tattooing.
Tattooings were sometimes observed on their wrists and arms and breasts, but the custom was not so general as with the northern tribes.
They, however, in common with other Indian peoples, were accustomed to the use of paints in decorating the body. They had their own native paints, some made from ground stone, others from a certain kind of clay. They had also very strong dyes from sundry kinds of roots and bark; also an oily substance from salmon roe, as well as several kinds of gum from trees.
In dressing they painted the eyebrows black, like a half moon, the face sometimes checked in small red squares, arms and legs and part of the body red. Sometimes but half the face was painted red in squares, and sometimes black. At other times the whole face was as black as tar. Some also covered the face with a quantity of bear’s grease, almost an eighth of an inch thick, or laid it on in ridges like beads in a joiner’s work and then painted the ridge red.