t age,
and are stronger than others; but there is not a crooked, bandy-legged,
or ill-shaped, Indian to be seen. Some nations of them are very tall and
large limbed, but others are short and small; their complexion is a dark
brown and tawny. They paint themselves with a pecone root, which stains
them a reddish colour. They are clear when they are young, but greasing
and sunning make their skin turn hard and black. Their hair, for the
most part, is coal black; so are their eyes; they wear their hair cut
after several whimsical modes, the persons of note always keep a long
lock behind; the women wearing it very long, hanging at their backs, or
twisted up with beads; and all the better sort adorn their heads with a
kind of coronet. The men have no beards, and, to prevent their having
any, use certain devices, which they will not communicate to the English.

Their clothes are a mantle girt close in the middle, and underneath a
piece of cloth tied round their waist, and reaching down to the middle of
the thigh. The common sort only tie a piece of cloth or skin round the
middle. As for their food they boil, broil, or roast, all the meat they
eat; honomy is the standing dish, and consists of Indian corn soaked,
broken in a mortar, and then boiled in water over a gentle fire ten or
twelve hours together. They draw and pluck their fowls, skin and paunch
their quadrupeds, but dress their fish with the scales on, and without
gutting; they leave the scales, entrails, and bones, till they eat the
fish, when they throw the offal away. Their food is chiefly beeves,
turtle, several species of snakes, broth made of deer's humbles, peas,
beans, &c. They have no set meals: they eat when they are hungry, and
drink nothing but water. Their bread is made of Indian corn, wild oats,
or the seed of the sun-flower; they eat it alone, and not with meat.

They travel always on foot with a gun or bow. They live upon the game
they kill, and lie under a tree upon a little high grass. The English
prohibit them to keep corn, sheep, or hogs, lest they should steal their
neighbour's.

When they come to rivers, they presently patch up a canoe of birch bark,
cross over in it, and leave it on the river's bank, if they think they
shall not want it; otherwise they carry it along with them.

Their way of receiving strangers is by the pipe, or calumet of peace. Of
this Pere Henepin has given a long account in his voyage, and the pipe is
as foll