Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/57

Rh old types are copied in the new material. One of these necklaces consists of beads and teeth. Six or seven fine leather thongs are strung with black beads of small size; rows one and a half inch long being made, a single bead of larger size, and in color white spotted with blue, is added; then follows another inch and a half of black beads; then comes a cluster of leopards' teeth three to five in number; this arrangement is repeated. The other necklace copies this in general plan. Rows of white beads are followed by a brass tooth; then come ruby-red beads with white spots; then another brass tooth, white beads, etc. The necklace with real teeth is of an older type than the other, and it is interesting, even after metal has been introduced and the ornamental and not the trophy idea prevails, to see the old trophy pattern carried over into a new and artificial material. Patterns survive.

Arm-bands and bracelets occur in great variety, but little need be said of them. Two African forms only will detain us. Among the Kaffirs, and in the west of Africa as well, a plain ivory arm-ring, in a single piece, is in common use. Such are easily made. The tusk of the elephant is hollow save near the small end. Toward the larger end the ivory sheath is thin and irregular, but it thickens and becomes solid toward the tip. All that is necessary to make arm-bands is to remove the soft, vascular inner part and then to cut the ivory into cross-sections, two or three inches wide. The rings thus made vary, of course, in size. After being cut they are carefully polished. With such rings the whole arm from wrist to elbow is often covered. Schweinfurth describes a pretty ornament of metal rings—the dagobar—as in use among White Nile tribes. The individual rings are of iron and are narrow and neatly made. They are worn so closely together upon the arm as to make a continuous metal