Under this, in the winter season, they wear a kind of shirt
resembling ours, made either of skin or cloth, and covering the arms and
body. Round the middle is fixed a girdle of cloth, or procured dressed
elk-skin, about an inch in width, and closely tied to the body; to this
is attached a piece of cloth, or blanket, or skin, about a foot wide,
which passes between the legs, and is tucked under the girdle both
before and behind. From the hip to the ankle is covered by leggins of
dressed antelope skins, with seams at the sides two inches in width, and
ornamented by little tufts of hair, the produce of the scalps they have
made in war, which are scattered down the leg. The winter moccasins
are of dressed buffalo skin, the hair being worn inward, and soled with
thick elk-skin parchment; those for summer are of deer or elk-skin,
dressed without the hair, and with soles of elk-skin. On great
occasions, or whenever they are in full dress, the young men drag after
them the entire skin of a polecat fixed to the heel of the moccasin.
Another skin of the same animal, either tucked into the girdle or
carried in the hand, serves as a pouch for their tobacco, or what the
French traders call bois roule.(1) This is the inner bark of a species
of red willow, which, being dried in the sun or over the fire, is,
rubbed between the hands and broken into small pieces, and used alone or
mixed with tobacco. The pipe is generally of red earth, the stem made of
ash, about three or four feet long, and highly decorated with feathers,
hair, and porcupine-quills.
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