It is long since Tom has worn or seen worn native costume—what little there was of it—but he distinctly remembers the blankets and cedar-bark garments that his people wore when he was a boy and, indeed, well on into his days of manhood. The heavy rains of the Coast, and the constant necessity of splashing in and out of the canoes along the beach, made tight-fitting garments and cumbrous foot- and leg-wear undesirable. The Nootka Indians wore no clinging shirts or leggings or moccasins. They are a barefoot and a bare-legged people. Those of the men who could afford more than a breechclout wore a blanket robe loosely thrown about the body, either a hide—of bear or the far more valuable sea otter—or a woven blanket, whether of the inner bark strands of the “yellow cedar” or the long, fleecy hair of the native dogs. The women wore cedar-bark “petticoats,” which are nothing but loosely fitting girdles, fringed with long tassels of cedar bark. In rainy weather, they also wore woven hats of cedar-bark strands or split root fibers, round topped and cone-like. When the weather was thick and heavy with rain—and this happens often enough in the winter—both men and women wore raincapes of cedar-bark or rush matting. The children ran about completely naked.