BOURGEOIS - Toronto Public Library

LETTERS 87
several bnnches of leather strings garnished with porcupinA
quills of different colours, the ends of which are hung with
beaver .£!aws. About their neck they have a well polished piece
of carribou horn, which is white and bent around the neck; on
their arms and wrists they tie bracelets and arm bands made
also of porcupine quills; around their waist they have also a
porcupine quill belt curiously wrought and Yal'iegated \vitll
quills of different colours.
The women are in general of a lower stature than the men, The wowear
their hair and ornaments like them, and are reckoned men.
handsome. Their dress in winter is a cotillon, woven like a mat,
of thongs of hare skin and a robe of the same (h'ng; on their
heads they nave a cap shaped like a milled cap (?) made of the
same stuff. Their leggings are long and made like trowsers
except in the front where an apperture is left to attelld the calls
of nature. Their summer dress consists of a leather coUlton,
leather robe, leggings, &c., as in \vinter.
Their husbands are very kind to them, their only business
being to make the men's clothes and their own, while the men's
work is to chop wood, strike fire, make the campment, hunt,
&c., &c. These Indians have a strange custom, which, if it is not
the most barbarolls, is at least the most unnatural and disgusting
of any I ever heard of. Whenever the women bring forth
a male child, they have a rule of pulling its legs every night
and morning, and squeeze its thighs, hoping by a superstitious
notion to procure him a pair of long shanks necessary for a
hunter, as being greatly conduciye to his becoming a great
runner. This custom is kepL up until the boy is two years old,
when it is dropped and he is allowed to grow according to
nature (1) .......................................................................... .
Besides this custom they have that also of biting, beating; Mourning
knocking themselves with axes; tearing their clothes, cutting
(1) The rest, unfit for publication.