The Natchez were described as "tall, robust, and strong," and many of their warriors were more than six feet tall. The women were regarded as attractive, and so were the men. However, we may be sure that certain peculiar practices of the Natchez Indians would mar their looks from our point of view. They practiced head flattening; they slit their ears to insert earrings, sometimes having holes "large enough to pass an egg through"; they artificially blackened their teeth by rubbing them each morning with a mixture of tobacco and wood ashes; and they darkened their skins by constant rubbing with bear's oil, apparently used as a protection from sunburn and mosquitoes.