Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/183

Rh World and the New, it is remarkable that so little recognition has been made of the affinity between totems and coats of arms.

Something similar is to be said about the costume, the ceremonial adornment, the got-up finery and ornaments, of the red man. Here he exhibits some strange imitations, approximations at least to those of the white man. True, the costume of the Indian was for the most part simply that with which he came into the world. But here again we find an accord with Nature. The Indian, as already noted, did not go naked because he could not procure clothing, but because he preferred freedom of limb and motion. As has been said, he had but a scant sense of shame, modesty, or decency: he took himself as Nature had made him. If he wanted covering — as he did and had — in the winter, he had but to transfer the skins of his brother animals to his own shoulders, often naïvely apologizing to the animals for doing so. At times he would smear his body with clay or paint, to ward off heat, cold, and insects.

There seems a long distance between their forest garb on state occasions and the gold, the lace, and brocades of court pageantry. But let us look a little closer at the matter, and compare aims and the means for reaching them. The Indians sometimes, no doubt, wished to appear fine and grand, like other people. They availed themselves of such ornaments and trinkets as they could get. They had not our range of commerce for stuffs, shawls, laces, ostrich feathers, jewels, etc.; they had not access to our shops and modistes: but they did the best they could. The deerskin, the leggings, the pouch, were richly dressed and embroidered with shells, fibrous roots, and porcupine quills; they mounted the feather and the plume, and had for earrings and necklaces the bear's claw and the snake's rattle. But few of them bored the cartilage of the nose for a pendant. The young and the old squaws, when coming into