Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/622

 604 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

A spot of dark color is often put on the cheeks [of the Hova women], .... much, indeed, as did the beauties of a hundred and fifty years ago in our own country, the contrast of the round black patch with the skin height- ening the effect of their fair complexions. 1

A servant of the king of Cochin China

spoke with contempt of the wife of the English ambassador, that she had white teeth like a dog, and a rosy color like that of potato flowers. 8

The love of display and the effort to extend and emphasize the personality among the natural races are the occasion of a great deal of attention to the hair and beard ; and this is espe- cially so, because of the limited range of objects available for purposes of % ornament. In this connection we find, however, as suggested by Humboldt above, that if the growth of hair and beard is abundant, they emphasize this by developing it to the utmost, while a scanty beard is usually plucked out:

The present chief of the Crows .... is called " Long-Hair," and has received his name as well as his office from the circumstance of having the

longest hair of any man in the nation Messrs. Sublette and Campbell

.... told me they had lived in his hospitable lodge with him for months together; and assured me that they had measured his hair by a correct means, and found it to be ten feet and seven inches in length ; closely inspecting every part of it at the same time, and satisfying themselves that it was the natural growth. 3

The Fijians have very thick and curly hair, and the longer and more frizzled it grows the more beautiful it is. They have a special method of hardening it: they dip it three or four times in water in which they have mixed ashes of leaves of the bread-fruit tree or burned coral cement and the rind of tut tui. Then it is carefully dried and curled three or four, or, according to Hale, as many as six hours. 4

Beards they generally have not esteeming them great vulgarities, and using every possible means to eradicate them whenever they are so unfortu- nate as to be annoyed with them The proportion of eighteen out of

twenty by nature are without the appearance of a beard ; and of the very few who have them by nature, nineteen out of twenty eradicate it [V/] by plucking it out several times in succession precisely at the age of puberty. 5

I SlBREE, The Great African Island, p. 210.

S WAITZ, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 305.

3CATLIN, The North American Indians, Vol. I, p. 49.

WAITZ-GERLAND, Anthropologie der Naturvolker, Vol. VI, p. 571.

SCATLIN, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 227.