“Both men and women make it a rule to go down to the river and wash every morning and evening.” (“Journal,” Vol. I., p. 325.)
“These people, like their neighbors, have the custom of washing, morning and evening.” (“Journal,” Vol. I., p. 348.)
Catlin, after eight years in their lodges (1832–40) says that notwithstanding many exceptions, among the wild Indians the “strictest regard to decency and cleanliness and elegance of dress is observed, and there are few people, perhaps, who take more pains to keep their persons neat and cleanly, than they do.” (Vol. I., p. 96.)
“In their bathing and ablutions at all seasons of the year, as a part of their religious observances — having separate places for men and women to perform these immersions — they resemble again [the Jews].” (Vol. II., p. 233.)
J. W. Schultz, who spent his life among the Blackfeet, comments on their wonderful hardiness. During the intensest zero weather, he, himself, wore twice as much clothing as they did, and yet was suffering severely, while “They never froze, nor even shivered from the cold. They attributed their indifference to exposure, to the beneficial effect of their daily baths, which were always taken, even if a hole had to be cut in the ice for the purpose. And they forced their children to accompany them, little fellows from three years of age up, dragging the unwilling ones from ther beds, and carrying them under their arms to the icy plunge.” (“My Life as an Indian,” pub. 1907; p. 63.)
This same experienced observer says:
“I have seen hundreds of white homes — there are numbers of them in any city — so exceedingly dirty, their inmates so slovenly, that one turns from them in absolute disgust, but I have seen nothing like that among the Blackfeet.” (P. 413.)
Friendly enthusiasts like Catlin may sometimes get only part of the facts, but the trained observers of the Smithsonian Institution
..text pokračuje
