"This nation having been at profound peace with the Osages, since the year 1806,[156] have intermarried freely with them, so that in stature, features, and customs, they are more and more closely approaching that people. They are large and symmetrically well formed, with the usual high cheek bones, the nose more or less aquiline, colour reddish coppery, the hair black and straight. Their women are small and homely, with broad faces. We saw but a single squaw in the village who had any pretensions to beauty; she was recently married to an enterprizing warrior, who invited us to a feast, apparently in order to exhibit his prize to us. The ordinary dress of the men is a breech cloth of blue or red cloth, secured in its place by a girdle; a pair of leggings, made of dressed deer-skin, concealing the leg, excepting a small portion of the upper part of the thigh; a pair of mockasins made of dressed deer, elk, or bison-skin, not ornamented; and a blanket to cover the upper part of the body, often thrown over one arm in hot weather, leaving that part naked; or it is even entirely thrown aside. The outer cartilage of the ear is cut through in three places, and upon the rims, thus separated, various ornaments are suspended, such as wampum, string beads, silver or tin trinkets, &c. The hair of most of their chiefs and warriors is scrupulously removed from the head; being careful, however, to leave enough, as in honour {119} they are bound to do, to supply their enemy with a scalp, in case they should be vanquished. This residuum consists of a portion on the back of the head, of about the breadth of the hand, rounded at its upper termination near the top of the head, the sides rectilinear, and nearly parallel, though slightly approaching each other towards the origin of the neck, where it abruptly terminates; on the exterior margin, the hair is somewhat longer and erect; this strip of hair is variously decorated; it is sometimes coloured on the margin with vermilion, sometimes a tail feather of the war eagle is attached transversely with respect to the head; this feather is white at base, and black at tip; but the principal ornament, which appears to be worn by some of their chief warriors, and which is, at the same time, by far the most handsome, is the tail of the common deer; this is attached by the base near to the top of the patch of hair, the back of it resting on the hair, and the tip secured near the termination of the patch; the bristly hair of the tail is dyed red by a beautiful permanent colour, and parted longitudinally in the middle by a broad silver plate, which is attached at top, and suffered to hang loose. Many of them are tattooed on different parts of the body. The young boys are entirely naked, with the exception of a girdle, generally of cloth, round their protruding abdomen. This part of the body in the children of