other words, over one shoulder and passing under the other) they very gracefully wear a robe from a young buffalo’s back, oftentimes cut down to about half of its original size, to make it handy and easy for use. Many of these are also fringed on one side with scalp-locks, and the flesh side of the skin curiously ornamented with pictured representations of the creditable events and battles of their lives. Their head-dresses are of various sorts, and many of them exceedingly picturesque and handsome, generally made of war-eagles’ or ravens’ quills and ermine. These are the most costly part of an Indian’s dress in all this county, owing to the difficulty of procuring the quills and the fur; the war-eagle being the _rara avis_, and the ermine the rarest animal that is found in the country.” Catlin gave two horses for one of the head-dresses. This specimen came down to the wearer’s feet. These are now called “war-bonnets,” and are still in use among the Sioux and other tribes. “There is occasionally,” continues Catlin, “a chief or a warrior of so extraordinary renown that he is allowed to wear horns on his head-dress, which give to his aspect a strange and majestic effect. These are made of about a third part of the horn of a buffalo bull, the horn having been split from end to end, and a third part of it taken and shaved thin and light and highly polished. These are attached to the top of the head-dress on each side in the same place that they rise and stand on the head of a buffalo, rising out of a mat of ermine skins and tails, which hang over the top of the head-dress somewhat in the form that the large and profuse locks of hair hang and fall over the head of a buffalo bull.” This head-dress with horns “is used only on certain occasions, and they are very seldom.”[125] [Illustration: MOKI WALL DECORATION. PINK ON A WHITE GROUND. MISHONGNUVI, ARIZONA] [Illustration: BELLACOOLAS] [Illustration: TOP VIEW OF CONICAL NORTH-WEST COAST HAT Made of spruce roots, ornamented in red and black paint, with totemic device of a raven See figure page 160 ] Among the Omahas, also of Dakota stock, garments, Dorsey says, “were usually made by the women, while men made their weapons.... There is no distinction between the attire of dignitaries and that of the common people.”[126] [Illustration: WONSIVU, A PAI UTE GIRL Posed by Thomas Moran From photograph by the Colorado River Survey, 1874 ]