Chapter C: Section 2

DISTINCTIVE COSTUMES, WEAPONS, AND ORNAMENTS.

On examining the relics of ancient peoples or their modern representatives, the instruments and arms accompanying them and the clothing upon them mark the social status of the individual. In the social life of past generations, and still to-day, certain garments with their adjuncts indicate certain functions. The lawyer, the mechanic, the priest, and the soldier are easily recognizable. These garments do not only give general indications, but minute details, so in looking upon a certain soldier it is known what country he serves, how many men are under his orders, and how many chiefs are above him. It is known if he marches on horseback or afoot, if he handles the rifle or the saber, works the cannon, designs fortifications, or builds bridges. Also, by looking on his decorated breast, it is shown if he has made campaigns and participated in historic battles, and whether or not he has gained distinction. This is told by the color, cut, and ornaments of his clothes and by the weapon he bears. Some details are also furnished by the cut of the hair, and even the style of foot-gear. The above remarks apply to the highest civilization, but all kinds of personal and class designations by means of distinctive costumes, weapons, and adornments were and still are most apparent and important among the less cultured peoples.

The American Indians seldom clothed themselves, except in very cold weather, save for purposes of ornament. They habitually wore no other garment than the breech-cloth, but in their ceremonies and social dances they bedecked themselves with full and elaborate costumes, often regulated with special punctilio for the occasion. The boreal tribes, such as the Alaskan, Athapascan, and Chippewayan, who were obliged to protect themselves for a large part of the year by furs and skins, developed characteristic forms of dress which in pictography take the place occupied by painting and tattooing among tribes where the person was more habitually exposed. Among the southern tribes there was need of protection against the rays of the sun, as in Mexico, where cotton and other fibers were used. In general some of the forms of wearing apparel, if only varieties in the make of moccasins or sandals, designated the tribe of the wearers, and therefore often became adopted as pictorial signs. Ceremonial clothing is often elaborately decorated with beads, porcupine quills, claws and teeth of animals, shells, and feathers. Many of these garments are further ornamented with paintings of a totemic or mythologic character, or bear the insignia of the wearer’s rank and social status. Metal ornaments, such as armlets, bracelets, anklets, earrings and bells, were also worn, the material and quantity being in accordance with the wearer’s ability and pecuniary condition. Upon both social and ceremonial occasions the headgear displayed eagle feathers and the plumes of other species of birds, and tufts of hair dyed in red or other colors. Necklaces were made of claws, shells, deer and antelope hoofs, the teeth of various animals, snake-skins, and even human fingers.

Immediately following are some of the Dakota designations in the particulars mentioned:

Fig. 1264.--Shield. Red Cloud’s Census. The shield here is without device, though frequently one is painted on the war shields. Such painting may be the pictograph of the gens or of the personal designation, or may show the marks of rank.

Fig. 1265.--Wahacanka, Shield. The Oglala Roster. The marks or bearings on the shield probably are personal and similar to those commonly called heraldic, but in this drawing are too minute for accurate blazonry.

Fig. 1266.--Black-Shield “says his prayers” (in the interpreter’s phrase; that is, he performed the rites elsewhere explained); and takes the war-path to avenge the death of two of his sons who had been killed by the Crows. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1859-’60.

Fig. 1267.--Eagle-Feather. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is probably the same name as translated Lone-Feather in the following figure, in which the feather also comes from an eagle’s tail:

Fig. 1268.--Lone-Feather said his prayers and took the warpath to avenge the death of some relatives. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1842-’43.

Fig. 1269.--Feathers. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure and the next refer to some special ornamentation.

Fig. 1270.--Feathers. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1271.--Bone-Necklace. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure and the three following show special kinds of neck ornaments.

Fig. 1272--Beads. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1273.--Stone-Necklace. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1274.--Feather-Necklace. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1275.--Wolf-Robe was killed by the Pawnees. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1850-’51.

He is killed and scalped while wearing a robe of wolf-skin.

Fig. 1276.--Wears-the-Bonnet. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is the ornamented war bonnet of the Dakotas.

Fig. 1277.--Garter. Red-Cloud’s Census.

Fig. 1278.--Wicanapsu-owin, Wears-human-fingers as earrings. The Oglala Roster.

The place for the fingers to be worn is indicated by the line terminating in a loop.

The Indian accumulated no wealth except in things useful during his life. His ornaments were made from shells which in their natural shape are innumerable; from the skins of animals which require only skill to take and dress them; and from stone and copper, demanding only strength to procure and transport them. The value of an Indian ornament is in the skill, care and patience required in making it. Thus the wampum-bead became of intrinsic value, similar in that to gold and silver in civilization; the stone carefully wrought into the fashion of a pipe became the emblem of authority and the instrument of worship; and copper, slowly and toilfully delved and fashioned with the rudest of tools and appliances, became almost a fetich of superstition. So likewise the quill of the porcupine, worked into a design in embroidery with the most exquisite care, was an ornament fit for warriors and chiefs. But on the cradle or basket-nest for the expected or new-born child, upon the gown or woman’s dress of the favorite daughter, and upon the moccasins and trappings for the growing son, hand and head and heart were employed for months and even years.

The Dakotan bride, swayed by the yearning of expectant maternity, perhaps also by ambition to excel in the sole permitted mode of its display, adorned her lodge with ornamented cradles, each new one becoming in design more beautiful and intricate than the last, until her yearning was answered, when the cradles not needed were exchanged for horses and ornaments, which became the endowment of the new-born child.

Some note should be made of the sense of correspondence and contrast of colors which the Dakota, at least, exhibits; the rules which he originates and observes forming that which is called artistic taste. The Indian’s use of colors corresponds more nearly than that of most barbarians with that common in high civilization, except that he perceives so little distinction between blue and green that but one name generally suffices for both colors. It is remarkable that among the wilder and plains tribes of Dakotas dead colors in beads are preferred and arranged with good effect, and that among these, specially, the use of neutral tints is common. Probably both of these results were produced from the old and exclusive employment of clays for pigments--clays of almost all colors and shades being found in the country over which the Dakotas roamed.

The peculiarities of dress or undress would seem to have first struck the people of the eastern hemisphere as well adapted to pictorial representation. Singularly enough to modern ideas, the braccæ or trousers were to the Romans the symbol of barbarism, whereas now the absence of the garments, called even “indispensable,” has the same significance. Maj. C. R. Conder (_d_) gives this good lesson literally “a propos de bottes:”

A curious peculiarity of dress also serves to indicate the
racial connection. In Cappadocia and in Anatolia the monuments
represent figures with a boot or shoe curled up in front. An
Assyrian representation of an Armenian merchant shows the same
boot. Sir C. Wilson first compared it with the boot now worn by the
peasantry of Asia Minor. Perrot compares it with the cavalry boot
worn in Syria and with what we call a Turkish slipper. The Etruscans
wore a similar shoe called calceus repandus by the Romans. On the
monuments at Karnak the Hittites are represented wearing the same
shoe, and although it is not of necessity a mark of race, it is
still curious that this curly-toed boot was common to the various
Turanian peoples of Syria, Asia Minor, Armenia, and Italy.

Schoolcraft (_t_) gives the characters on the left hand of Fig. 1279 as two Ojibwa war clubs, and the right-hand character in the same figure is represented in a Wyoming petroglyph as a bow.

Many other weapons distinctive to their draughtsmen are shown in this paper.

It may be well to insert here Fig. 1280, showing the wommeras and clubs of the Australians, taken from Curr (_d_), not only on account of their forms but of the pictorial designs on some of them, which should be compared with those of the Moki and other Indian tribes.

A large number of pictographic figures distinguishing bodies of Indians by different mode of head dress have already been given. Some additional detail may be added about the Absaroka who have in this regard been imitated by the Hidatsa and Arikara.

They wear horse hair taken from the tail, attached to the back of their heads and allowed to hang down their backs. It is arranged in eight or ten strands, each about as thick as a finger and laid parallel with spaces between them of the width of a single strand. Pine gum is then mixed with red ocher or vermilion and by means of other hair, or fibers of any kind laid crosswise, the strands are secured and around each intersection of hair a ball of gum is plastered to hold it in place, secured to the real growth of hair on the back of the head. About four inches further down a similar row of gum balls and cross strings is placed, and so on down to the end. The Indians frequently incorporate the false hair with their own so as to lengthen the latter without any marked evidence of the deception. Nevertheless the transverse fastenings with their gum attachments are present. In picture-writing this is shown upon the figure of a man by parallel lines drawn downward from the back of the head, intersected by cross lines, the whole appearing like small squares or a piece of net. See Figs. 484 and 485, supra.

A quaint account of social designation by the arrangement of the hair among the Northeastern Algonquins is recorded in the Jesuit Relations of 1639, pp. 44-5:

When a girl or woman favors some one who seeks her, she cuts the
hair in the fashion adopted by the maidens of France, hanging over
the forehead, which is an ugly style as well in this country as in
France; St. Paul forbidding women to show their hair. The women here
wear their hair in bunches at the back of the head, in the form of a
truss, which they decorate with beads when they have them. If, after
marrying some one, a woman leaves him without cause, or if, being
promised and having accepted some present, she fails to keep her
word, the presumptive husband sometimes cuts her hair, which renders
her very despicable and prevents her from getting another spouse.

There is a differentiation of this usage among the Pueblos generally, who, when accurate and particular in delineation, designate the women of that tribe by a huge coil of hair over either ear. This custom prevails also among the Coyotèro Apaches, the women wearing the hair in a coil to denote a virgin, while the coil is absent in the case of a married woman.

Regarding the apparent subject matter of pictographs an obvious distinction may be made between hunting and land scenes such as would be familiar to interior tribes and those showing fishing and aquatic habits common to seaboard and lacustrine peoples. Similar and more perspicuous modes of discrimination are available. The general scope of known history, traditions, and myths may also serve in identification. Known habits and fashions of existing or historically-known tribes have the same application, e. g., the portrayal on a drawing of a human face of labrets or nose rings limits the artist to defined regions, and then other considerations may further specify the work.

When the specific pictorial style of distinctive peoples is ascertained its appearance on rocks may give evidence of their habitat and migrations, and on the other hand their authorship of the petroglyphs being received as a working hypothesis, the latter may be confirmed and the characters interpreted through the known practices and habits of the postulated authors.