All these tribes, of course, varied very much in personal appearance, though not in disposition.  The vanished Beothiks of Newfoundland are described as having been a good-looking tall people, with large black eyes and a skin so light, when washed free from dirt or paint, that the Portuguese compared them to gipsies; and the writer of Fabian’s Chronicle, who saw two of them (brought back by Cabot) at Henry VII’s Court, in 1499, took them for Englishmen when they were dressed in English clothes.  It was these people—­subsequently killed out by the British settlers on Newfoundland—­who originated the term “Red Indians”, or, in French, Peaux Rouges, because their skins, like those of so many other Amerindians, were painted with red ochre.

Many of the British Columbian peoples made themselves artificially ugly by flattening the sides of the head.  To press the skull whilst it was soft, they squeezed the heads of their children between boards; others, such as the warlike tribes of the upper Missouri, had a passion for submitting themselves to mutilation by the medicine man of the clan, in order to please the sun god.  Such would submit to large strips being cut from the flesh of their shoulders, arms, or legs, or having their cheeks slashed.  The result, of course, was to leave their limbs and features horribly scarred when they healed up.  In some tribes, however, a young man could not obtain—­or retain—­a wife unless he had shown his bravery by submitting to this mutilation.  Women often cut off one or more joints of their fingers to show their grief for the death of children.

In some tribes, especially of the far north-west and of the Rocky Mountains, the personal habits of men and women, or of the women only, were so filthy, and their dislike to bathing so pronounced, that they became objects of loathing to white men; in other tribes personal cleanliness was highly esteemed, especially on the seacoast of British Columbia or along the banks of the great rivers.  Usually the men were better looking and better developed than the women—­for one reason, because they were better fed.

Here is a description by PETER GRANT—­a pioneer of the North-West Company—­of the Ojibwe Indians dwelling near the east end of Lake Superior at the beginning of the nineteenth century:—­

“Their complexion is a whitish cast of copper colour, their hair black, long, straight, and of a very strong texture.  The young men allow several locks of the hair to fall down over the face, ornamented with ribbons, silver brooches, &c.  They gather up another lock from behind the head into a small clump, and wrap it up with very thin plates of silver, in which they fix the tail feathers of the eagle or any other favourite bird with the wearing of which they have distinguished themselves in war.  They are very careful with their hair, anointing it with bears’ oil, which gives it a smooth and glossy appearance.  The teeth are of a beautiful ivory