ealanders tie a red cloth round the head or wear headdresses of dark
feathers. New Caledonians cut off their hair and blacken and oil their
faces[85]. Hawaiians cut their hair in various forms, knock out a
front tooth, cut the ears and tattoo a spot on the tongue[86]. The
Mineopies use three coloring substances for painting their bodies; and
by the way they apply them they let it be known whether a person is
ill or in mourning, or going to a festival.[87] In California the
Yokaia widows make an unguent with which they smear a white band two
inches wide all around the edge of the hair[88]. Of the Yukon Indians
of Alaska "some wore hoops of birch wood around the neck and waists,
with various patterns of figures cut on them. These were said to be
emblems of mourning for the dead."[89] Among the Snanaimuq "the face
of the deceased is painted with red and black paint... After the death
of husband or wife the survivor must paint his legs and his blanket
red."[90] Numerous other instances may be found in Mallery, who
remarks that "many objective modes of showing mourning by styles of
paint and markings are known, the significance of which are apparent
when discovered in pictographs."[91]

INDICATIONS OF TRIBE OR RANK

Among the customs which, in Darwin's opinion, show "how widely the
different races of man differ in their taste for the beautiful," is
that of moulding the skull of infants into various unnatural shapes,
in some cases making the head "appear to us idiotic." One would think
that before accepting such a monstrous custom as evidence of any kind
of a sense of beauty, Darwin, and those who expressed the same opinion
before and after him, would have inquired whether there is not some
more rational way of accounting for the admiration of deformed heads
by these races than by assuming that they approved of them for
_esthetic_ reasons. There is no difficulty in finding several
non-esthetic reasons why peculiarly moulded skulls were approved of.
The Nicaraguans, as I have already stated, believed that heads were
moulded in order to make it easier to bear burdens, and the Peruvians
also said they pressed the heads of children to make them healthier
and able to do more work. But vanity--individual or tribal--and
fashion were the principal motives. According to Torquemada, the kings
were the first who had their heads shaped, and afterward permission to
follow their example was granted to others as a special favor. In
thei