arp pieces of bamboo or shell.
Infant deformation is not practised in any form by the Mafulu people;
nor do they circumcise their children.
Ornaments.
The string-like plaits in which men and women arrange their
hair, and especially those of the women, are often decorated with
ornaments. Small cowrie and other shells, or native or European beads,
or both, are strung by women on to these plaits, sometimes in a line
along all or the greater part of the length of the plait, sometimes
as a pendant at the end of it, and sometimes in both ways; and any
other small ornamental object may be added. Dogs' teeth are also
used by both men and women in the same way; but these are, I think,
more commonly strung in line along the plaits, rather than suspended
at the ends of them. Both men and women wear suspended at the ends
of these plaits wild betel-nut fruit, looking like elongated acorns;
and men, but not women, wear in the same way small pieces of cane, an
inch or two long, into which the ends of the plaits are inserted. All
these forms of decoration may be found associated together. They are
in the case of men usually confined to the plaits at the sides, being
also often attached to the side ends of the artificial fringes; but
they are sometimes used for the back of the head also. The women often
wear them also at the top of the head, and in wearing them at the sides
sometimes have them hanging in long strings reaching to the shoulders.
Plate 24 (Figs. 1, 2, 5, and 6) and Plate 25 (Figs. 2 and 4) are
ornamented plaits cut off the heads of women. The ornaments shown
include beads, shells, discs made out of shells, dogs' teeth and
betel-nut fruit. Plate 24 (Figs. 3 and 4) are ornamented plaits cut
off the heads of men, one of them having a cane pendant, and the
other a pendant of betel-nut.
The appearance of these things, as worn, is seen in Plates 16, 26,
27, 28 and 29 (the habit of wearing a single dog-tooth at each side
of the head, as shown by 27, being a common one, and 28 showing
the equally common habit of wearing a couple of betel-nuts at each
side). Their appearance, when worn in abundance for a festal dance,
is excellently shown in the frontispiece and in Plate 17; and the
little girl in Plates 22 and 23, though too young to be a dancer,
is decorated for an occasion.
Pigs' tails are a common head decoration for women, and are also worn,
though not so frequently, by men. These tails are covered with the
nat
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