PERSONAL ADORNMENT AND DEFORMATION. ltl

The last mentioned people use a knife for that operation'; but the western
Dénés replace it by special tweezers such as those herewith, figured (fig. 1).
The earliest and pre-European pattern of the same (fig. 2) consisted of two
thin pieces of horn fashioned to the required shape by means of heating,
and bound together with sinew threads. Those I have seen in use were of
copper bartered from the Pacific Coast Indians. Instead of these the eastern
Dénés originally had recourse to the edge of a blunt knife, over which their
finger nails grasped the obnoxious hairs, not unlike the Tuskis.

By the fire-side or in their moments of leis-
ure — which were not few or far between — the
old men kept themselves constantly busy feeling
therewith the straggling hairs that would attempt
to force an appearance on their smooth faces.
These tweezers, when not in use, rested on the
breast hanging from the neck.

The prehistoric Sékanais, if we may judge
by the practice but lately prevalent among the
old men of that tribe, indulged in the possession
of a queer looking moustache, which consisted
of the hair growing immediately below the septum,
and of the same breadth therewith, while on both
sides the lip was kept free of hair. The Navahoes
make use for that purpose of tin tweezers, with which they pluck all their
beard except the moustache. Father Leopold tells us that the Sékanais hornless
moustache just mentioned is also occasionally seen in the south’,

The same tweezers served also to trim the eye-brows to the most elegant
shape possible, that is, narrow, long and very dark. To accentuate this hue,
which is natural to all the tribes, what remained of the eye-brows after being
remodelled by their manipulation was smeared over with charcoal mixed with
grease. The Apaches went still further. Until a short time ago, they plucked
out their eye-lashes, and even their eye-brows. A few still persist in the
practice.

Fig. 1.

Tattooing.

Tattooing was formerly prevalent almost everywhere, and tattoo marks
can to-day be seen practically in all the tribes — at least within British
America. It is not a little strange that the wildest and most stubbornly averse
to civilized ideas of all the Déné groups were originally the only ones which
did not know of that practice. Tattooing is of a late date among the Apaches.

“Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski”, pp. 36—37.
Cf. Hearne, op. cit. p. 306.

1

2

’ St. Anthony’s Messenger, vol. XII, p. 7.

4 “The Medicine-men of the Apache”, by John G. Bourne, IX. Ann. Rep. Bur. of Ethno-

logy, p. 475.