Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/810

790 Two of these ornament-bearers would be capable of carrying a particularly heavy load of objects. These are the neck and the loins girdles. To what extent the hanging of ornament upon these girdles is carried is shown by the following cases mentioned by Wood. A young Kaffir dressed for a visit is described as follows: "He will wear furs, among them the Angora goat; feathers in his head-dress; globular tufts of beautiful feathers on his forehead or on the back of his head; eagle feathers in fine head-dresses, as also ostrich, lory, and peacock feathers. He ties so many tufts and tails to his waist-girdle that he may almost be said to wear a kilt." Of some other Africans—"Around their waists they wear such masses of beads and other ornaments that a solid kind of cuirass is made of them and the center of the body quite covered with them." In these cases, which might easily be multiplied, is it not evident that the objects hung on to the girdle are simply ornamental, and



that one accustomed to wearing such a mass of objects would feel shame at their absence? This ornamental mass would, with introduction of newer and lighter materials, give way to an apron which would be really a modest covering, although originating in ornament. The African apron and the Polynesian liku are developed from the waist-cord with its ornaments. In the same way the neck-girdle might give rise to a cape for the shoulders.

Examining the dress of the world, we can distinguish two fairly marked types which we may designate, as Lippert does, the northern and southern types of dress. The latter is really a development from just these two pieces of dress—the neck-girdle and