Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/289

 huts abound with them, and the dogs are dragging and fighting over the offal in all directions. Not less than eight hundred Indians were present on this occasion. {233} One who has seen them five years ago, poor and almost naked, and who beholds them now, discovers with a peculiar feeling of humor and delight, the entire change in their external appearance, a complete metamorphosis, as Ovid would say. Their dresses are of the most grotesque character, regardless alike of their appropriateness to sex or condition of life. A masquerade character, as we understand it, will at least exhibit unity of design; but this Indian masquerade sets all unities at defiance. A stout, swarthy Indian, steps proudly by you, apparently conscious of the dignity conferred on him by his new acquisitions—a roundabout much too small for him, a pair of tights with straps, with an intervening space showing the absence of linen, form his body dress, while an old fashioned lady's night-cap with large frills, and if he be rich enough, a sailor's glazed cap carefully balanced above it, constitute his head dress; a pair, and sometimes half a pair of brogans, complete the ludicrous appearance of this Indian dandy. Some appear parading thro' the camp in the full dress of a wagoner, others in a mixture composed of the sailor's, the wagoner's, and the lawyer's, arranged according to fancy; but the favorite article of ornamental {234} dress appears to be the night-cap with its large frills; some again with only one article of dress. I have seen an old Indian showing off a pair of boots to the best advantage, as they formed the only article of his wardrobe then on his person. Indian squaws are seen attired in long calico gowns, little improved by the copious addition of fish oil, with which the taste or negligence of the present owners besmeared them; occasionally, if they can afford it, to this is superadded a vest, a flannel