Their dress was chiefly of skins, cured with smoke after the well-known
Indian mode. That of the women, according to the Jesuits, was more
modest than that "of our most pious ladies of France." The young girls
on festal occasions must be excepted from this commendation, as they wore
merely a kilt from the waist to the knee, besides the wampum decorations
of the breast and arms. Their long black hair, gathered behind the neck,
was decorated with disks of native copper, or gay pendants made in France,
and now occasionally unearthed in numbers from their graves. The men,
in summer, were nearly naked,--those of a kindred tribe wholly so,
with the sole exception of their moccasins. In winter they were clad in
tunics and leggins of skin, and at all seasons, on occasions of ceremony,
were wrapped from head to foot in robes of beaver or otter furs,
sometimes of the greatest value. On the inner side, these robes were
decorated with painted figures and devices, or embroidered with the dyed
quills of the Canada hedgehog. In this art of embroidery, however,
the Hurons were equalled or surpassed by some of the Algonquin tribes.
They wore their hair after a variety of grotesque and startling fashions.
With some, it was loose on one side, and tight braided on the other; with
others, close shaved, leaving one or more long and cherished locks; while,
with others again, it bristled in a ridge across the crown, like the back
of a hyena. [ See Le Jeune, Relation, 1638, 35.--"Quelles hures!"
exclaimed some astonished Frenchman. Hence the name, Hurons. ] When in
full dress, they were painted with ochre, white clay, soot, and the red
juice of certain berries. They practised tattooing, sometimes covering
the whole body with indelible devices. [ Bressani, Relation Abregee, 72.
--Champlain has a picture of a warrior thus tattooed. ] When of such
extent, the process was very severe; and though no murmur escaped the
sufferer, he sometimes died from its effects.