The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's LifeStevens, Frank Everett
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The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life
Stevens, Frank Everett
Black Hawk War, 1832; Black Hawk, Sauk chief, 1767-1838
“The faces of the Saukees, although exhibiting features characteristic
of their savage state, are not disagreeable, and they are rather well
made than otherwise. Their size and structure, which are of the middle
kind, indicate neither peculiar strength nor weakness. Their heads are
rather small; that part called by French anatomists _voute orbitaire_
has in general no hair except a small tuft upon the pineal gland, like
that of the Turks; this gives the forehead an appearance of great
elevation. Their eyes are small and their eyebrows thin; the cornea
approaches rather to yellow, the pupil to red; they are the link between
those of the orang-outang and ours. Their ears are sufficiently large to
bear all the jewels, etc., with which they are adorned; two foxes’ tails
dangled from those of the Great Eagle. I have seen others to which were
hung bells, heads of birds and dozens of buckles, which penetrated the
whole cartilaginous part from top to bottom. Their noses are large and
flat, like those of the nations of eastern Asia; their nostrils are
pierced and ornamented like their ears. The maxillary bones, or
pommettes, are very prominent. The under jaw extends outwards on both
sides. Their mouths are rather large; their teeth close set, and of the
finest enamel; their lips a little inverted. Their necks are regularly
formed; they have large bellies and narrow chests, so that their bodies
are generally larger below than above. Their feet and hands are well
proportioned. Except the tuft on the head, which we have already
remarked, they have no hair on any part of the body. Books which deal
greatly in the marvelous convert this into an extraordinary phenomenon,
but the fact is that, from a superstition common to all savages, they
pluck it out, and, as they begin at an early age and use the most
perservering means for its extirpation, nothing is left but a soft
down.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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