of hair the produce of the scalps they
have made in war, which are scattered down the leg. The winter moccasins
are of dressed buffaloe-skin, the hair being worn inwards, and soaled
with thick elk-skin parchment: those for summer are of deer or elk-skin,
dressed without the hair, and with soals of elk-skin. On great
occasions, or wherever 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 is either tucked into the girdle or
carried in the hand, and serves as a pouch for their tobacco, or what
the French traders call the bois roule: 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 is 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.

The hair of the women is suffered to grow long, and is parted from the
forehead across the head, at the back of which it is either collected
into a kind of bag, or hangs down over the shoulders. Their moccasins
are like those of the men, as are also the leggings, which do not
however reach beyond the knee, where it is met by a long loose shift of
skin which reaches nearly to the ancles: this is fastened over the
shoulders by a string and has no sleeves, but a few pieces of the skin
hang a short distance down the arm. Sometimes a girdle fastens this skin
round the waist, and over all is thrown a robe like that worn by the
men. They seem fond of dress. Their lodges are very neatly constructed,
in the same form as those of the Yanktons; they consist of about one
hundred cabins, made of white buffaloe hide dressed, with a larger one
in the centre for holding councils and dances. They are built round with
poles about fifteen or twenty feet high, covered with white skins; these
lodges may be taken to pieces, packed up, and carried with the nation
wherever they go, by dogs which bear great burdens. The women are
chiefly employed in dressing buffaloe skins: they seem perfectly well
disposed, but are addicted to stealing any thing which they can take
without being observed. This nation, although it makes so many ravages
among its neighbours, is badly supplied with guns. The water which they
carry with them is contained chiefly in the paunches of deer and other