The men always went bare-headed, and, in the summer, wore nothing beside a short garment about the loins, called, by the white settlers, " Indian breeches." The women dressed their glossy hair in a thick, heavy plait. Their dress usually consisted of two garments, -- a leather shirt and a skirt of the same material fastened around the waist, with a belt and reaching below the knees. From these various considerations, we can

Foil I

MOKTAR AX I) PESTLE^ il near Croton River, in Yorktown. Tlio pestle is 18 inches long.

understand how a large population could exist in comparative comfort in this section.

The Indian houses were made by planting poles in the ground and binding them together at the top. These were covered with bark or thatched with reeds and rushes, so as to be impervious to rain. Their beds were made of evergreen boughs, covered with skins and furs. Their furniture was extremely simple. Besides the before-mentioned pots for cooking, they had wooden bowls for holding their food and wooden spoons for handling it. Mats made of rushes sometimes covered the floors of their huts. They had buckets ingeniously made of birch-bark, so as to be water-tight, and baskets of various sizes, made of

' The iDdian specimens illnstratiiig this chapter are from the iulcresting and valuable private collection of Mr. James Wood, of Mt. Kisco, Westchester County.

HISTORY OF AVESTCHESTER COUNTY.

splints, rushes or grass. Their villages were composed of houses closely huddled together about a central .sj)ace, which was used for the transaction of public business, for ceremonies and amusements. Besides the manufactures already named there were others that attested the Indian's skill. He made boats of two kinds. One consisted of a light, wooden frame, covered with birch-bark, skillfully and tastefully fastened at the seams; this boat was peculiarly valuable on long journeys, as its lightness allowed it to be easily carried from the waters of one stream to those of another.