The following is from Wood, whose quaint and graphic descriptions of the New England Indians are always interesting: "But a Sagamore with a Humberd in his eare for a pendant, a black hawk on his _occiput_ for his plume, Mowhackees for his gold chaine, a good store of Wampompeage begirting his loynes, his bow in his hand, his quiver at his back, with six naked _Indian_ spatterlashes at his heels for his guard, thinkes himselfe little inferior to the great _Cham_; he will not stick to say he is all one with King _Charles_. Hee thinkes hee can blow down Castles with his breath and conquer kingdomes with his conceit."[73]
Du Pratz, in speaking of the Louisiana Indians, says: "The women's ear-rings are made of the center part of a large shell called bingo, which is about the thickness of one's little finger, and there is a hole in the ear about that size for holding it."[74]
Lewis and Clark found the Shoshone Indians of the Upper Missouri using shells of the pearl oyster to decorate the collars of their fur tippets. The children wore beads around their necks; grown persons suspended them in little bunches from the ears, and the collars of the men were formed either of sea-shells from the southwest or from twisted grass with porcupine quills.[75]
Among the Carrier Indians of the Northwest both sexes perforate their noses, and from them the men often suspend an ornament consisting of a piece of an oyster shell or a small piece of brass or copper. The women, particularly those who are young, run a wooden pin through their noses, upon each end of which they fix a kind of shell bead, which is about an inch and a half long, and nearly the size of the stem of a common clay pipe. These beads they obtain from their neighbors, the At-e-nâs, who purchase them from another tribe that is said to take them from the sea-shore, where they are reported to be found in plenty.
It is also stated of the same Indians that "the young women and girls wear a parcel of European beads, strung together and tied to a lock of hair directly behind each ear. The men have a sort of collar of the shell beads already mentioned, which they wind about their heads or throw around their necks."[76]
The absurd extreme to which this passion for ornament is carried is well illustrated by an example given by Swan, who, speaking of the tribes north of the Columbia River, says that "some of these girls I have seen with the whole rim of their ears bored full of holes, into each of which would be inserted a string of these shells that reached to the floor, and the whole weighing so heavy that, to save their ears from being pulled off, they were obliged to wear a band across the top of the head."[77]