"No sooner does an Indian belle experience this promotion, than all her
notions at once rise and expand to the dignity of her situation, and the
purse of her lover, and his credit into the bargain, are taxed to the
utmost to fit her out in becoming style. The wife of a free trapper to
be equipped and arrayed like any ordinary and undistinguished squaw?
Perish the grovelling thought! In the first place, she must have a horse
for her own riding; but no jaded, sorry, earth-spirited hack, such as
is sometimes assigned by an Indian husband for the transportation of his
squaw and her pappooses: the wife of a free trader must have the
most beautiful animal she can lay her eyes on. And then, as to his
decoration: headstall, breast-bands, saddle and crupper are lavishly
embroidered with beads, and hung with thimbles, hawks' bells, and
bunches of ribbons. From each side of the saddle hangs an esquimoot,
a sort of pocket, in which she bestows the residue of her trinkets and
nick-nacks, which cannot be crowded on the decoration of her horse or
herself. Over this she folds, with great care, a drapery of scarlet and
bright-colored calicoes, and now considers the caparison of her steed
complete.
"As to her own person, she is even still more extravagant. Her hair,
esteemed beautiful in proportion to its length, is carefully plaited,
and made to fall with seeming negligence over either breast. Her
riding hat is stuck full of parti-colored feathers; her robe, fashioned
somewhat after that of the whites, is of red, green, and sometimes
gray cloth, but always of the finest texture that can be procured.
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