Clothing

Clothing

Early explorers of New York noted that some of the Indians wore very little clothing, even in the winter time: 

“They wore little clothing in summer or winter and seemed to thrive. ‘One Jesuit father who lived among the Mohawk people states that he saw one warrior braving a storm with the upper part of his body bare, and only protected by a wildcat skin through which he had thrust his arm, holding it on the windward side.’ These people lived in bark houses, unheated save by the floor fires lighted for cooking.” (James Sullivan, History of New York State, vol. 1, 1927, p. 42)