The time we spent with this band of savages was so short as to afford little opportunity of becoming acquainted with their manners. Their dress is nearly similar to that of the Pawnees, but consists more exclusively of leather. The women, instead of the robe, wear a loose sort of a frock without sleeves. It has an opening for the neck, just large enough to admit the head, and descends from the shoulders, hanging like a bag about the body, and reaching below the knees. When eagerly engaged in their employments, this inconvenient article of dress is thrown aside, and there remains the squabbish person of the female savage, disfigured only by a small apron of leather worn round the waist. The young females appear to be in some measure exempted from the laborious services performed by the married women, and consequently possess a degree of lightness and elasticity in their persons, which they soon lose after they begin to bear children, and subject themselves to the severe drudgeries of a married life. Their breasts become so flaccid and pendulous, that we have seen them give suck to their children, the mother and the child at the same time standing erect upon the ground. This fact is sufficient to prove that they do not, at least in some instances, wean their children at a very early age.
{ 299} Like all savages, they suffer themselves to be covered with filth and vermin, notwithstanding which some of the young ones are far from disgusting in their appearance. They have well turned features, aquiline noses, large and regular teeth, and eyes, which though usually rather small, are clear and brilliant. Some of the men of this band have larger and finer teeth than we remember to have seen heretofore among savages. In the general structure of their features, and the complexion of their skins, they resemble the Missouri tribes, being of a clearer and brighter red than many of the eastern Indians. In stature and in symmetry, and elegance of form, they are inferior to the Otoes, Pawnees, and to most of the Missouri Indians who reside in permanent villages. They seemed to have had little intercourse with the whites, as some among them appeared to take great pleasure in exhibiting to their friends the skin of our arms, which they requested us to show for that purpose. It was probably by means of a mistake on the part of one of the interpreters, that we received the intimation that they had never heard before of such a people as that to which we belonged. We saw among them few articles of foreign production; these they had probably received from Spanish traders. In the whole encampment we saw but one kettle, which belonged to the chief, and their great eagerness to steal our tin cups and other similar articles, sufficiently evinced that such things are scarce, and of great value among them. They have some beads, most of which are bestowed in ornamenting the dress of the children; also some pewter and brass rings, worn principally by the women. They are acquainted with the use of tobacco, and smoked with us according to the universal custom of the Indians, but expressed by signs that they found the smoke of unmixed tobacco too strong for them. One of their young men, who was in his ordinary dress when we met the party, visited us soon after we had encamped, { 300} dressed in leggings and breech cloth, with a striped worsted vest and a silver-headed bamboo, which he sported among us with the air of a great traveller.