Tattooing of the face and arms by these people was quite an ancient practice, and was performed with cactus spines and black mineral pigment only, not charcoal as other tribes might use. Clothing consisted of fur caps, robes, shawls, ponchos, and capes of animal skin with the hair either on or off the hide, and woven vegetable fibers. Highly painted and fringed buckskin-sleeved shirts were worn by the men. The women wore buckskin gowns or dresses, painted and fringed. Buckskin belts held up a skin wrapped around the waist to serve as a kilt for the men, or skirts of buckskin for the women. Hard-soled moccasins were worn by both sexes, while only the men wore a hip-length buckskin leggin. Hide overshoes were used in winter. The winter bed was usually composed of a grass and hide mattress with hide coverings, whereas the summer bed was a willow rack or mat with a rawhide twining bedstead supported by four forked posts covered with skins (Plains type). Burdens were transported with the aid of a tump line back pack or other slings, baskets, gourds, pottery, rawhide or leather bags or containers and horse travois. Baskets (water-proofed with pitch), mats, cradles, cordage of vegetable and animal materials, including hair and pottery, were manufactured by both men and women. A variety of games were played by all, including foot racing, shinny, hoop and pole, etc. Gambling by adults was done with a hand game of guessing with bones, moccasin game, drawing straws, dice, and heads or tails with flat stones (wet or dry). The children played games of war, wrestled, and had toys of guns, dolls, stones, etc. Tobacco was gathered and smoked in an elbow pipe. Both tobacco and pipe were kept in a buckskin bag which was usually highly decorated. The people assembled at the Chief’s dwelling or in an open space. Unlike most Plains tribes, the Mescaleros did not carry a medicine bundle but carried “medicine” inside themselves. For music and ceremony there were rattles of gourds or horn, drums of pottery and wood, a musical bow, whistles and flutes. The calendar was divided into four named seasons with daily and monthly tallies kept on a notched stick. Counting was done on the fingers, and some observations of astronomy were made. Various colors were symbolic. East was black; south, blue; west, yellow; and north, white. Their God, Nayiizone, when coming from or going to the sky, rode on a black ray to the east, on a blue horse to the south, on a yellow (sorrel) horse to the west, and on a white horse to the north. Mysticism, taboo, and definite procedure governed childbirth, naming, education of the young, marriage, affinal relations, death, mourning, labor by both sexes, slaves, land ownership, personal property, war, scalping, dances, ceremonies, political and clan organizations, peyote, kinship systems, religion and shaman ritual.