Concerning the persons and dress of the Indians, Carver has much to say. He notices many things still well known, and speaks of certain others that are so long obsolete as to be almost forgotten. Thus he declares that: “It is also a common custom among them to bore their noses, and wear in them pendants of different sorts. I observed that sea-shells were much worn by those of the interior parts, and reckoned very ornamental; but how they procured them I could not learn: probably by their traffick with other nations nearer the sea.” Another custom noted, which has long been obsolete, but is still remembered by the most ancient persons of some of the Western tribes, is the woman’s fashion of dressing the hair. To the west of the Mississippi, he says, the Sioux and Assiniboine women “divide their hair in the middle of the head, and form it into two rolls, one against each ear. These rolls are about three inches long, and as large as their wrists. They hang in a perpendicular attitude at the front of each ear, and descend as far as the lower part of it.”
The characteristics of the Indians, their method of reckoning time, their government, division into tribes, their chiefs, food, dances, and many other matters, are described at great length; as is also their hunting, their manner of making war, and, incidentally, the defeat of Braddock, and the massacre of the people under Col. Monroe, at Fort William Henry. Carver himself appears to have been with the prisoners, of whom so many were massacred on that unhappy day; but he himself at length reached Fort Edward in safety. He tells something, also, of the way in which the Indians tortured their captives, and speaks of the Illinois Indian brought into the town of Ottigaumies, who was bound to a tree while all the small boys in the village were permitted to amuse themselves by shooting arrows at the victim. As none of the boys were more than twelve years old, and they were placed at a considerable distance, their arrows did little more than pierce the skin; so that the prisoner stood for more than two days pierced with these arrows. During all this time he sung his warlike exploits, told how much injury he had inflicted on his enemies, and endeavored with his last gasp to incite his tormentors to greater efforts, in order that he might give still greater proofs of his fortitude.