In fact these
latter were very good people and often their conduct would put to the
blush white people. They never would eat or even drink a cup of tea
without first saying a grace, and then, if only by a word,--thanking
God for what they received. But those that used the paint managed to
arrange their persons in the most abomonable and ghastly manner. With
the feathers, they mix porcupine quills and knit the whole into their
hair--then daub, their head with a species of white clay that is to be
found in their country. They wear no clothing except what they call
loin-cloth or breach-cloth, and when they, go on the war-path, just as
when they went to attack Fort Pitt, they are completely naked. Their
bodies are painted a bright yellow, over the forehead a deep green,
then streaks of yellow and black, blue and purple upon the eyelids and
nose. The streaks are a deep crimson, dotted with black, blue, or
green. In a word, they have every imaginable color. It is hard to form
an idea of how hedious they appear when the red, blue, green and
white feathers deck the head, the body a deep orange or bright yellow
and the features tatooed in all fantastic forms. No circus clown could
ever equal their ghostly decorations. When one sees, for the first
time, these horrid creatures, wild, savage, mad, whether in that war-
dance or to go on the war-path, it is sufficient to make the blood run
cold, to chill the senses, to unnerve the stoutest arm and strike
terror into the bravest heart.
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