Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/818

798 neck of the giraffe. Naturally, these are stiff, angular, and elastic. When wanted for use it is steeped in hot water until quite soft, and then beaten between stones. This separates it into filaments of any fineness and very strong. The sinew is used wet and so is the leather; when dry, the seams are very tight and close (Wood).

The Kaffir also wears an apron called an isinene. This is simply a waist-girdle to which are hung trophies. Though these are supposed to be tails of the leopard, lion, or buffalo, they are seldom really such. One specimen was made up of fourteen tails of twisted monkey-skin, each about fourteen inches long, finely sewed to a belt of the same material covered with red and white beads. Across the belt. were two rows of brass buttons. Among the Polynesians the common dress is the liku, a fringed girdle of thongs of some vegetable material. These thongs may be of no greater coarseness than pack-thread, or they may be of some width and neatly crimped. Feather garments are frequently of great beauty. The finest come from South America and the south seas. A Mundurucu apron consisted of a backing of cotton string into which were worked feathers: a band of jetty black at the lower end, above it bright yellow, and then scarlet with blue and yellow pattern in it; the upper edge was set with brilliant beetle elytra. The most famous feather mantles were those made for royal use in Hawaii, consisting of mesh-work into which were worked feathers of the yellow melithreptes. Only two of these feathers were produced at one time by one bird, and the mantles were valued at an almost fabulous price. Last of these descriptions we may quote what Schweinfurth says of the costume of King Munza, of Africa, on state occasions. He wore a plumed hat on top of his chignon, reaching one foot and a half above his head. This hat was a narrow cylinder of closely plaited reeds, ornamented with three layers of red parrot feathers and crowned with a plume of the same; it had no brim; he wore a copper crescent in front. His ear muscles were pierced, and