AN INDIAN BEAU.
A young Indian warrior is, notoriously, the most thoroughgoing beau in the world. Bond-street and Broadway furnish no subjects that will undergo as much crimping and confinement, to appear in full dress. We are confident that we have observed such a character constantly occupied with his paints and his pocket-glass, three full hours, laying on his colours, and adjusting his tresses, and contemplating, from time to time, with visible satisfaction, the progress of his growing attractions. When he has finished, the proud triumph of irresistible charms is in his eye. The chiefs and warriors, in full dress, have one, two, or three broad clasps of silver about their arms; generally jewels in their ears, and often in their noses; and nothing is more common than to see a thin circular piece of silver, of the size of a dollar, depending from their nose, a little below the upper lip. Nothing shows more clearly the influence of fashion. This ornament—so painfully inconvenient, as it evidently is to them, and so horribly ugly and disfiguring—seems to be the utmost finish of Indian taste. Porcupine quills, stained of different colours, are twisted in their hair. Tails of animals hang from their hair behind. A necklace of bears’ or alligators’ teeth, or claws of the bald eagle, hangs loosely down; and an interior and smaller circle of large red beads, or in default of them, a rosary of red hawthorn berries, surrounds the neck. From the knees to the feet, the legs are decorated with great numbers of little perforated cylindrical pieces of silver or brass, that emit a simultaneous tinkle as the person walks. If, to all this, he add an American hat, and a soldier’s coat, of blue, faced with red, over the customary calico shirt of the gaudiest colours that can be found, he lifts his feet high, and steps firmly on the ground, to give his tinklers a uniform and full sound; and apparently considers his person with as much complacency as the human bosom can be supposed to feel. This is a very curtailed view of an Indian beau; but every reader, competent to judge, will admit its fidelity, as far as it goes, to the description of a young Indian warrior over the whole Mississippi Valley, when prepared to take part in a public dance.
AN INDIAN TOAST.
When General Wayne was holding his treaty with the Indians at Greenville, a young chief sat down at the dinner table, next to the General. This was not much relished by the White Chief; but he did not wish to give open offence to his Red Brother. The cloth being removed, the wine began to circulate; when Wayne—thinking to confound and abash the young chief—asked him for a toast. This being interpreted and explained to this son of the forest, he filled his tumbler with wine, and gave ‘The Great Spirit’—and after an impressive pause, pressing his hand on his breast—he added, “Because he put it into the heart of man to make such good liquor!”
SHREWDNESS.
“He that delivereth it unto thee hath the greater sin.”
“I am glad,” said the Rev. Dr. Y⸺s to the chief of the Little Ottowas, “that you do not drink whiskey. But it grieves me to find that your people use so much of it.” “Ah, yes,” replied the Indian,—and he fixed an arch and impressive eye upon the Doctor, which communicated the reproof before he uttered it—“we Indians use a great deal of whiskey, but we do not make it.”