Sugar is made from the sap of the maple. Wild rice is gathered by the Cree and Chippewa on Red River and the adjacent lakes, but not by the upper Missouri tribes. In times of great scarcity old bones are collected by the nations of whom we write, pounded, and the grease extracted by boiling, and eaten together with any of the foregoing roots or berries that can be found. But these sad times always happen when the snow is deep, the ground frozen, and they can not be found. Then those who have not laid up a stock of some of these roots the previous summer are driven to the necessity of killing and eating their horses and dogs, which being exhausted and nothing more to be found they are compelled to eat human flesh.[33] [33] We have only witnessed one season in 21 years where they were driven to this necessity. GARMENTS; DRESSES In the materials of their clothing, as far as the cold climate will admit, articles of European manufacture have been substituted for their skins, but there being no fabric as yet introduced equal to or even approaching the durability and warmth of the buffalo skin, all hunters and travelers in the winter season must be clothed with the latter to preserve life or prevent mutilation by frost. Still in the summer season these are laid aside, being full of vermin and saturated with grease and dirt, and the Indian steps proudly around in his calico shirt, blanket, and cloth pantaloons. Their hair also, formerly tangled and matted, has been unraveled by the use of different kinds of combs, and the livestock, which found “a living and a home there,” has, by these instruments, been torn from their comfortable abode, thus rendering useless their original method of disposing of these vermin, viz., extracting them with their fingers and masticating them in turn for revenge. Most of the clothing used by these tribes is made of skins of their own procuring and dressing, the process of which has already met with attention. They have different dresses for different seasons, also various costumes for war, dancing, and other public occasions, some of which have been described. In the summer seasons, when comparatively idle, the clothing traded from the whites is preferred on account of its superior texture and color, but in their usual occupations, in winter, at war, in the chase, or any public ceremonies among themselves, very few articles of dress thus obtained are seen, if we except some blankets, undercoats, scarlet cloth, and ornaments. Their own dresses of skins fancifully arranged, adorned with feathers, beads, shells, and porcupine quills, are much more highly prized by them than any article of dress of European manufacture introduced by the traders. We will now detail a few of the most common or everyday dresses among them, in different seasons, male and female, estimating the cost of each in buffalo robes at $3 each, their value in this country. SUMMER AND FALL DRESS FOR MEN NO. 1