“They were described variously as majestic, Herculean, and as one of the Smithsonian Institution’s first ethnographers put it, “as fine a race of men physically, perhaps, as there is in existence.”14 They painted their faces coal black, with a red streak from the hairline to the chin, and were known for their tattooing and face painting, on both men and women, which communicated everything from military might to grief over the loss of a child.”
