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The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes, Volume 1

Note 388 — Chapter III · COLUMBIANS. (continued 2)

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The Ootlashoot women wear 'a long shirt of skin, reaching down to the ancles, and tied round the waist.' Few ornaments. The Nez Percés wear 'the buffalo or elk-skin robe decorated with beads, sea-shells, chiefly mother-of-pearl, attached to an otter-skin collar and hung in the hair.' Leggins and moccasins are painted; a plait of twisted grass is worn round the neck. The women wear their long robe without a girdle, but to it 'are tied little pieces of brass and shells, and other small articles.' 'The dress of the female is indeed more modest, and more studiously so than any we have observed, though the other sex is careless of the indelicacy of exposure.' 'The Sokulk females have no other covering but a truss or piece of leather tied round the hips and then drawn tight between the legs.' Three fourths of the Pisquitpaws 'have scarcely any robes at all.' The Chilluckittequaws use skins of wolves, deer, elk, and wild cats. 'Round their neck is put a strip of some skin with the tail of the animal hanging down over the breast.' Lewis and Clarke's Trav., pp. 321, 340-1, 351, 359, 361, 377, 526, 528, 532-3. Many of the Walla Walla, Nez Percé, and Cayuse females wore robes 'richly garnished with beads, higuas,' etc. The war chief wears as a head-dress the whole skin of a wolf's head, with the ears standing erect. The Okanagans wear in winter long detachable sleeves or mittens of wolf or fox skin, also wolf or bear skin caps when hunting. Men and women dress nearly alike, and are profuse in the use of ornaments. Ross' Adven., p. 127, 294-8; Id., Fur Hunters, vol. i., p. 306. The Flatheads often change their clothing and clean it with pipe-clay. They have no regular head-dress. From the Yakima to the Okanagan the men go naked, and the women wear only a belt with a slip passing between the legs. Cox's Adven., vol. i., pp. 133, 148, 240-1, vol. ii., p. 144. Nez Percés better clad than any others, Cayuses well clothed, Walla Wallas naked and half starved. Palmer's Jour., pp. 54, 124, 127-8. At the Dalles, women 'go nearly naked, for they wear little else than what may be termed a breech-cloth, of buckskin, which is black and filthy with dirt.' Wilkes' Nar., in U. S. Ex. Ex., vol. iv., pp. 409-10, 426, 473. The Kliketat women wear a short pine-bark petticoat tied round the loins. Townsend's Nar., pp. 78, 178, 148. 'Their buffaloe robes and other skins they chiefly procure on the Missouri, when they go over to hunt, as there are no buffaloe in this part of the country and very little other game.' Gass' Jour., pp. 189, 205, 218-19, 295. Tusshepaw 'women wore caps of willow neatly worked and figured.' Irving's Astoria, pp. 315, 317, 319; Id., Bonneville's Adven., p. 301. The Flathead women wear straw hats, used also for drinking and cooking purposes. De Smet, Voy., pp. 45-7, 198. The Shushwaps wear in wet weather capes of bark trimmed with fur, and reaching to the elbows. Moccasins are more common than on the coast, but they often ride barefoot. Mayne's B. C., p. 301. Parker's Explor. Tour, pp. 229-30; Kane's Wand., p. 264, and cut; Fremont's Ogn. and Cal., pp. 186-7; Stevens, in Ind. Aff. Rept., 1854, p. 222; Nicolay's Ogn. Ter., p. 153; Franchère's Nar., p. 268; Dunn's Oregon, p. 311; Coke's Rocky Mts., p. 304; Hunt, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., tom. x., 1821, pp. 74-5, 78.

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