regard to their beards, though they are scarcely visible, they have them in common with all the tribes of Savages; but having an aversion to excrescences, they carefully pluck [155] out every hair from the upper jaw and chin with brass wire, which they twist together in the form of pincers; and it is well known that all traders carry out that article of commerce for this express purpose.
Baron de la Hontan seems to have been much mistaken when, in speaking of the Savages, he says that they have no beards. Lord Kaims was also in the same error, when he asserted there is not a single hair on an Indian's body, excepting the eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair of the head, and that there is no appearance of a beard.
This observation Mr. James Adair remarks is utterly void of foundation, as can be attested by all who have had any communication with them; and major Robert Rogers,[1] who certainly knew the Indians as well as any man, says that they totally destroy their beards; which proves beyond a doubt that they are not naturally imbarbes.
I have been led into these observations from the perusal of Lord Kaims's Sketches of the History of Man,[2] who not only insists that the Indians have no beards, but builds on the hypothesis to prove a local creation.
Tadousac is on the sea side, north of the River St. Laurence, and inhabited by a few Indians called mountaineers, who live chiefly on fish;[3] and one trader, clerk to the gentleman in whose service I was engaged.
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- ↑ For biographical sketch of Robert Rogers, see vol. i, Croghan's Journals, note 61. Long here refers to his work, Concise Account of North America (London, 1765).—Ed.
- ↑ Henry Home, Lord Kames, a famous Scotch jurist, published Sketches of History of Man (Edinburgh, 1774).—Ed.
- ↑ The Montagnais Indians—so called from their habitat, the mountainous country north and east of Quebec—were an Algonquian tribe, much in con-
