La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

;1687.] JOUTEL AND THE CENIS. 443It was in one of the largest that the four travellerswere now lodged.A place was assigned them whereto bestow their baggage; and they took possession oftheir quarters amid the silent stares of the wholecommunity. They asked their renegade countryman,the Provencal, if they were safe. He replied thatthey were; but this did not wholly reassure them,and they spent a somewhat wakeful night. In themorning, they opened their budgets, and began abrisk trade in knives, awls, beads, and other trinkets,which they exchanged for corn and beans. Beforeevening, they had acquired a considerable stock ; andJouteFs three companions declared their intention ofreturning with it to the camp, leaving him to continuethe trade. They went, accordingly, in themorning; and Joutel was left alone. On the onehand, he was glad to be rid of them; on the other,he found his position among the Cenis very irksome,and, as he thought, insecure. Besides the Provencal,who had gone with Liotot and his companions, therewere two other French deserters among this tribe,and Joutel was very desirous to see them, hopingthat they could tell him the way to the Mississippiterials, as the rigor of a northern climate requires, bear a generalresemblance to those of the Cenis.The Cenis tattooed their faces and some parts of their bodies,by prickiDg powdered charcoal into the skin. The women tattooedthe breasts ; and this practice was general among them, notwithstandingthe pain of the operation, as it was thought very ornamental.Their dress consisted of a sort of frock, or wrapper ofskin, from the waist to the knees. The men, in summer, wore nothiner but the waist-cloth.