These Though Generally Included In The Generic Name
Of Free Trappers, Have The More Specific Title Of Skin Trappers.
The wandering whites who mingle for any length of time with the
savages have invariably a proneness to adopt savage habitudes;
but none more so than the free trappers.
It is a matter of vanity
and ambition with them to discard everything that may bear the
stamp of civilized life, and to adopt the manners, habits, dress,
gesture, and even walk of the Indian. You cannot pay a free
trapper a greater compliment, than to persuade him you have
mistaken him for an Indian brave; and, in truth, the counterfeit
is complete. His hair suffered to attain to a great length, is
carefully combed out, and either left to fall carelessly over his
shoulders, or plaited neatly and tied up in otter skins, or
parti-colored ribands. A hunting-shirt of ruffled calico of
bright dyes, or of ornamented leather, falls to his knee; below
which, curiously fashioned legging, ornamented with strings,
fringes, and a profusion of hawks' bells, reach to a costly pair
of moccasons of the finest Indian fabric, richly embroidered with
beads. A blanket of scarlet, or some other bright color, hangs
from his shoulders, and is girt around his waist with a red sash,
in which he bestows his pistols, knife, and the stem of his
Indian pipe; preparations either for peace or war. His gun is
lavishly decorated with brass tacks and vermilion, and provided
with a fringed cover, occasionally of buckskin, ornamented here
and there with a feather.
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