TEXAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1846-1859
90
simple and they are strangers to strong drink, or "fire-u:ate'r," as they significantly call alcoholic liquors. They have no regu- lar physicians, and have not much use for any, for there are few diseases prevalent among them. Fevers sometimes occur, but are not understood either in their pathology or manner of cure: they are generally intermittent, and of a very mild type, owing partly to the arid purity of their atmosphere. They have no professed practitioners in obstetrics. A woman will accom- plish her parturition without aid, and sometimes on a journey, without losing an entire day's march. The smallpox was intro- duced among them the second year previous to my visit, and swept off a great number. It prevailed but a short time or the nation would have become extinct, for I believe very few who imbibed the virus survived its ravages. Their mode of treat- ment was calculated to increase the mortality. The patients were strictly confined to their lodges, excluded from the air, and almost suffocated with heat. In many instances while under the maddening influence of the disease, exasperated by a severe paroxysm of symptomatic fever, they would rush to the water and plunge beneath it. The remedy was invariably fatal. The Comanche costume is simple, though often variegated: it consists generally of a buffalo robe, worn loosely around the person, and covering the whole to the ancles. This is sometimes painted, or ornamented with beads on the skin side, or both. They prefer a large mantle of scarlet or blue cloth, or one half of each color, except in very cold weather, when the robe, the hair turned in, is more comfortable. The breechcloth is usually of blue stroud, and discends to the knees. The leggings, made long, of dressed deer-skin, or blue or scarlet cloth, garnished with a profusion of beads and other gewgaws. The head-dress ·is as various as their fancies can suggest, and their means sup- ply. Parrow-a-kifty's parade head-dress was a cap made of the scalp of a buffalo bull, with the horns attached in proper posi- tion. He ordinarily wore few ornaments. The young men, the exquisites of the tribe,-and no people, savage or civilized, are more addicted to the fanciful in dress,-bedaub their faces with paints of divers kinds and colors-red, black, and white predom- inant-these they obtain, for the most part, from the different fossils of their country, without chemical elaboration. Ver- mil'ion is much admired, but is generally too costly for habitual use. They sometimes load their heads with feathers, arranged in lofty plumes, or dangling 'in the air in pensile confusion. or
Powered by FlippingBook