Such would submit to large strips being cut from the flesh of their shoulders, arms, or legs, or having their cheeks slashed.

The result, of course, was to leave their limbs and features horribly scarred when they healed up.

In some tribes, however, a young man could not obtain--or retain--a wife unless he had shown his bravery by submitting to this mutilation.
Women often cut off one or more joints of their fingers to show their grief for the death of children.
In some tribes, especially of the far north-west and of the Rocky Mountains, the personal habits of men and women, or of the women only, were so filthy, and their dislike to bathing so pronounced, that they became objects of loathing to white men; in other tribes personal cleanliness was highly esteemed, especially on the seacoast of British Columbia or along the banks of the great rivers.

Usually the men were better looking and better developed than the women--for one reason, because they were better fed.
Here is a description by PETER GRANT--a pioneer of the North-West Company--of the Ojibwe Indians dwelling near the east end of Lake Superior at the beginning of the nineteenth century:-- "Their complexion is a whitish cast of copper colour, their hair black, long, straight, and of a very strong texture.

The young men allow several locks of the hair to fall down over the face, ornamented with ribbons, silver brooches, &c.