DRESS AND PERSONAL HABITS. 99

“In winter, when they go abroad, which they must do in all weathers,
to hunt and shoot for their daily food, before they dress they rub themselves
all over with bears grease, or oil of beavers, which does not freeze, and also
rub all the fur of their beaver coats, and then put them on; they also have
a kind of boots or stockings of beavers skin well oiled, with the fur inwards,
and above them they have an oiled skin laced about their feet, which keeps
out the cold, and also water, when there is no ice or snow; and by this
means they never freeze, nor suffer any thing by cold. In summer also, when
they go naked, they rub themselves with these oils or grease, and expose
themselves to the sun, without being scorched, their skins always being kept
soft and supple by it; nor do any flies, bugs, or musketoes, or any noxious
insect ever molest them. When they want to get rid of it they go into the
water, and rub themselves all over with mud or clay, and lets (sic) it dry
upon them, and then rub it off; but whenever they are free from the oil,
the flies and musketoes immediately attack them, and oblige them, again to
anoint themselves?.”

In the north the men carry themselves erect and walk with a light step.
But the women, either from the habit of sinking under heavy burdens or as
a result of the infirmities peculiar to their sex which accidents consequent on
their state of mitigated slavery bring on, have ordinarily a most ungainly
gait, even when unloaded. The first explorers also uniformly remarked the
generally depressed expression of the northern Déné females, as contrasted
with the playful and imperious demeanour of their lords and masters.

It is perhaps owing to this dependent condition of the women and
their almost constant state of fatigue that, even to the present day, they never
sit on anything, but invariably squat on the ground or on the floor. The men
will occasionally imitate them in this respect. If standing or walking, you
must be careful not to set your arms akimbo if you would not seem to court
thereby the jibes and jeers of your fellows. That posture is deemed a token
of ridiculous pretensions.

1 “An Account of the Countries adjoining to Hudson’s Bay”, by Arthur Dobbs,
London, 1744.

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