Travels in North America, From Modern Writers: With Remarks and Observations; Exhibiting a Connected View of the Geography and Present State of that Quarter of the GlobeBingley, William
History
Travels in North America, From Modern Writers: With Remarks and Observations; Exhibiting a Connected View of the Geography and Present State of that Quarter of the Globe
Bingley, William
Canada -- Description and travel; Mexico -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
These people are of middle stature, thin, ugly, and ill made,
particularly about the legs. Many of them appeared to be in a very
unhealthy state, owing, probably, to their filthiness. As far as could
be discerned, through the grease and dirt that covered them, they were
of fairer complexion than the generality of Indians. The women have two
double lines of black or blue colour upon each cheek, from the ear to
the nose; and the gristle of the nose is perforated, so as to admit a
goose-quill, or a small piece of wood to be passed through it. The
clothing of these Indians is made of the dressed skins of the rein or
moose-deer. Some of them, says Mr. Mackenzie, were decorated with a neat
embroidery of porcupine-quills and hair, coloured red, black, yellow,
and white; and they had bracelets for their wrists and arms, made of
wood, horn, or bone. Round their head they had a kind of band,
embroidered with porcupine quills, and ornamented with the claws of
bears and wild-fowl.
Their huts or lodges are very simple. A few poles, supported by forks,
and forming a semicircle, with some branches or pieces of bark as a
covering, constitute the whole of the architecture. Two of these huts
are constructed facing each other, and a fire is made between them.
Among the furniture are dishes of wood, bark, or horn; and vessels in
which they cook their food, narrow at the top, and wide at the bottom.
The latter are formed of roots of the spruce fir-tree, so closely
interwoven as to hold water. This people have also small leather bags,
to hold their embroidered work, their lines, and fishing-nets. They
twist the fibres of willow-bark, and the sinews of rein-deer, into
fishing-lines; and they make fishing-hooks of horn, wood, or bone. Their
weapons for hunting are bows and arrows, spears, daggers, and clubs.
They kindle fire, by striking together a piece of white or yellow
pyrites and a flint-stone, over a piece of touchwood.
Their canoes are small, pointed at both ends, flat-bottomed, and covered
in the fore part. They are made of the bark of the birch-tree, and of
fir-wood; but are so light, that the man whom one of these vessels bears
on the water, is able to carry it overland, without any difficulty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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