THE GREAT DENE RACE.

Old women simply brush or comb it backward. The hair of male Apaches
is always trimmed and permitted to hang about, while some men of cither
the Navaho or Apache tribes use bandana handkerchiefs as head-bands. This
is also done in the north, but only with a view to remedying headaches.

Among the Hupas, the hair was either tied in two clubs hanging about
to the right and to the left, or in a single queue which fell behind in ap-
proved Déné style. A band of some kind was also often worn around the
head. “A ring of stuffed buckskin about two inches thick, covered with the
red scalps of woodpeckers, is still worn in some dances in which the regalia
are not especially prescribed... Feathers or feathered darts are usually worn
in the hair also”, The Hupas of old seem to have been more fastidious than
usual with primitive races, since, according to Dr. P. E. Goddard, they some-
times perfumed the hair with the yerba buena (Micromeria chamissonis) tied
up therewith.

As to the Sarcees, the accompanying illustration will tell better than
any words of mine of the alien influences which bear on their mode of wearing
the hair. The main difference between that and the original Déné fashion
consists mostly in the crown hair being bound up on the top, instead of on
the back, of the head.

As to Facial Hair.

In common with the natives of northeastern Asia, our aborigines are re-
markable for the scarcity of their facial hair. In fact, were this point of their
physique taken as a criterion of ethnological certitude, those branches of the
human family should be stamped as very closely related. However, it would
be going beyond the requirements of truth to affirm that no cases of really
heavy beards occur even among the Dénés. The Nahanais old man whose
portrait is presented to the reader is not more than half as hairy as three or
four individuals whom I know within the single Carrier tribe.

In most cases it would seem that the natives thought nature had been
SO sparing with them in her distribution of that apanage of the male sex
that what portion of it had fallen to their lot was not worth keeping. So,
they very generally, though not invariably, plucked the few hairs that would
grow on their chin, cheeks and upper lip.

This correcting of nature’s handiwork is common to all the tribes, and
to many non-Déné races as well. Facial depilation is reported of the African
Zungoone by Gmelin; of the Sumatrans, by Marsden; of the Mindanas is-
landers, by Forrest; of the Pelly islanders, by Wilson; of the inhabitants of
New Guinea, by Cartaret; of the natives of the Navigators’ Islands, by Bou-
gainville; of the Nootkans, by Captain Cook, and of most American abori-
gines by the first explorers; also of the Tuskis of Asia, by Lieut. Hooper.

* “Life and Culture of the Hupas”, p. 19.