Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/152

 According to Schweinfurth, no other people possess a higher cephalic index; it would appear moreover that in certain districts the mothers compress the heads of their children into certain shapes. Unlike so many other peoples of the riverain regions, the men do not go naked, but wear a strip of cloth, and the iron' rings which they wear on the arms, occasionally numbering several dozens, are 80 arranged as to form veritable pieces of armour. The women wear no loin-cloth,

merely attaching to the girdle a leafy branch or tufts of grass. Their ornaments consist of nails or metal plates, which they pass through the lower lip. Bongo women are often seen wearing, like the Botocudos of Brazil, inserted in the lip, a disc large enough to be used as a plate. The dandies also insert pegs into the sides of the lips, the nostrils and other prominent parts of the body. Persons are seen thus "pinned up" in a hundred different places.