SAVAGERY AND SURVIVALS. 399 



his car fare until called for by tlie conductor. Just as the dress 

 or bodily ornaments characterize the tribe, so does the peculiar 

 style of disfigurement serve as a tribal mark as well as a decora- 

 tion. Some file the teeth in fantastic shapes ; others bore and 

 stud them with brass nails. Among some African tribes it is the 

 custom to break off the lower jaw teeth. Sometimes they are 

 filed to a point for the purpose of griping the arm of an adver- 

 sary in wrestling or in single combat. 



In tribal or family distinctions they do not stop here, for body- 

 painting, tattooing, gashing the face and body were used for the 

 purpose, while the savage can give the moderns many valuable 

 points on dressing the hair. " The ancient Egyptian woman had 

 blue hair, green eyelashes, painted teeth, and reddened cheeks, 

 while the modern Egyptian follows similar fashions, prolonging 

 the eyes by means of a drug, staining the nails brown, and paint- 

 ing blue stars on the chin and forehead." One does not have to 

 go far in our own land to find a physiognomy as artificial in its 

 makeup as that of the savage or Egyptian ; while the painted 

 face of the savage and the Indian is still kept before us in a more 

 grotesque and ludicrous form in the curiously painted face of the 

 circus clown. 



Tattooing is a mode of ornamentation adopted by a great 

 number of savage tribes, but with the development of dress, skin 

 decorations cease, and as we get higher up in civilization but few 

 remains of these savage customs are found. Our sailors, how- 

 ever, have shown a considerable degree of conservatism in pre- 

 serving this custom. 



Gashing is one of the most curious of all practices. "In 

 South Africa, the Nyambanas," says Lubbock, "are character- 

 ized by a row of pimples or warts, about the size of a pea, and ex- 

 tending from the upper part of the forehead to the top of the 

 the nose. . . . The tribal mark of the Bunns (Africa) consists of 

 three slashes from the crown of the head down the face toward 

 the mouth; the ridges of flesh stand out in bold relief. This 

 painful operation is performed by cutting the skin and taking 

 out a strip of flesh ; palm oil and wood ashes are then rubbed 

 into the wound, thus causing a thick ridge upon healing. . . . 

 The Eskimos from Mackenzie River make two openings in 

 their cheeks, one on each side, which they gradually enlarge, 

 and in which they wear an ornament of straw resembling in 

 form a large stud, and which may therefore be called a cheek 

 stud." * 



I am told that now some young women occasionally submit 

 to a rather painful surgical operation for the removal of a piece of 



* Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, chap, ii, p. 59. 



