Their leggins are fastened with straps to their leathern girdles, and are embroidered at the outer seam with stripes, one or two inches in breadth, of porcupine quills, of beautiful various colours, and often with blue and white beads, and long leathern fringes, which form at the ankle a thick bunch, which trails upon the ground. The leather of which their leggins are made is, for the most part, stained of a reddish-brown, or pale red, usually with clay, sometimes white, and often marked below the knee with black transverse stripes. They, as well as all the tribes of North America, use what the English call a breechcloth (Nokka), which is a narrow strip of woollen cloth, striped black and white, which passes between the thighs under the girdle, before and behind, where it hangs down. Their shoes, which are made of buck skin, or buffalo leather, are generally plain, or very slightly ornamented; but, in full dress, they are embroidered with coloured rosettes, or strips of dyed porcupine quills or beads. Those men who have performed exploits wear, round the ankles, wolf's tail, or pieces of otter skin, which are lined with red cloth, and trail on the ground. In the summer, when the men are at home, and go about in state, they carry the fan of eagle's feathers in their hands, which we have before described. What the Anglo-Americans call "the crow," which is worn by the warriors of the nations of the Mississippi, and the Lower Missouri, is wholly unknown among the tribes of the Upper Missouri, the Sioux, Assiniboins, Crows, Mandans, Arikkaras, Manitaries, and Blackfeet.[226]
The boys are generally naked, and in winter merely have a robe thrown over them; the girls are dressed in leather in summer as well as winter. The women wear a long leather { 342} garment, with open sleeves, and a girdle round the waist; the hem of this dress is often scolloped and fringed; they ornament the wrists with iron rings, and tie strings of glass beads round their necks, and sometimes in their ears. Their leggins, called, by the Canadians, mitasse, are short, reaching only from the ankle to the knee. Their shoes are simple, and without any ornament.
Tattooing is in use among these people, but by no means general. Most commonly only the left half of the breast and the corresponding arm are marked with black parallel stripes, and a few other figures. The lower arm and some of the fingers are occasionally marked; the men do not tattoo their faces, and they are far inferior in this art to the New Zealanders and other nations of the South Seas. Among the women such designs are sometimes seen, but not frequently, and they are chiefly among the women's band of the white buffalo cow. The point of the needle is dyed a dark blue with the bark of the willow soaked in water.