e inner bark of a tree
wound spirally round each curl, radiate from the head in all directions.
Some have it hanging all round the shoulders in large masses; others
shave it off altogether. Many shave part of it into ornamental figures,
in which the fancy of the barber crops out conspicuously. About as many
dandies run to seed among the blacks as among the whites. The Man ganja
adorn their bodies extravagantly, wearing rings on their fingers and
thumbs, besides throatlets, bracelets, and anklets of brass, copper, or
iron. But the most wonderful of ornaments, if such it may be called, is
the pelele, or upper-lip ring of the women. The middle of the upper lip
of the girls is pierced close to the septum of the nose, and a small pin
inserted to prevent the puncture closing up. After it has healed, the
pin is taken out and a larger one is pressed into its place, and so on
successively for weeks, and months, and years. The process of increasing
the size of the lip goes on till its capacity becomes so great that a
ring of two inches diameter can be introduced with ease. All the
highland women wear the pelele, and it is common on the Upper and Lower
Shire. The poorer classes make them of hollow or of solid bamboo, but
the wealthier of ivory or tin. The tin pelele is often made in the form
of a small dish. The ivory one is not unlike a napkin-ring. No woman
ever appears in public without the pelele, except in times of mourning
for the dead. It is frightfully ugly to see the upper lip projecting two
inches beyond the tip of the nose. When an old wearer of a hollow bamboo
ring smiles, by the action of the muscles of the cheeks, the ring and lip
outside it are dragged back and thrown above the eyebrows. The nose is
seen through the middle of the ring, amid the exposed teeth show how
carefully they have been chipped to look like those of a cat or
crocodile. The pelele of an old lady, Chikanda Kadze, a chieftainess,
about twenty miles north of Morambala, hung down below her chin, with, of
course, a piece of the upper lip around its border. The labial letters
cannot be properly pronounced, but the under lip has to do its best for
them, against the upper teeth and gum. Tell them it makes them ugly;
they had better throw it away; they reply, "Kodi! Really! it is the
fashion." How this hideous fashion originated is an enigma. Can thick
lips ever have been thought beautiful, and this mode of artificial
enlargement resor