FASHION IN DEFORMITY. 729 



cutting edge of each tooth, producing a serrated border to the whole 

 series (3). 



The Malays, however, excel the Africans, both in the universality 

 and in the fantastic variety of their supposed improvements upon 

 nature. While the natural whiteness of the surface of these organs 

 is always admired by us, and by most people, the Malays take the 

 greatest pains to stain their teeth black, which they consider greatly 

 adds to their beauty. White teeth are looked upon with perfect dis- 

 gust by the Dyaks of the neighborhood of Sarawak. In addition to 

 staining the teeth, filing the surface in some way or other is almost 

 always resorted to. The nearly universal custom in Java is to remove 

 the enamel from the front surface of the incisors, and often the canine 

 teeth, hollowing out the surface, sometimes, but not often, so deeply 

 as to penetrate the pulp cavity (4). The cutting edges are also worn 

 down to a level line with pumice-stone. Another, and less common, 

 though more elaborate fashion, is to point the teeth, and file out notch- 

 es from the anterior surface of each side of the upper part of the 

 crown, so as to leave a lozenge-shaped piece of enamel untouched ; as 

 this receives the black stain less strongly than the parts from which 

 the surface is removed, an ornamental pattern is produced (5). In 

 Borneo a still more elaborate process is adopted : the front surface of 

 each of the teeth is drilled near the center with a small round hole, 

 and into this a plug of brass with a round or star-shaped knob is fixed 

 (6). This is always kept bright and polished by the action of the lip 

 over it, and is supposed to give a highly attractive appearance when 

 the teeth are displayed. 



Perhaps the strange custom, so frequently adopted by the natives 

 of Australia, and of many islands of the Pacific, of knocking out one 

 or more of the front teeth, might be mentioned here, but it is usually 

 associated with some other idea than ornament or even mere fashion. 

 In the former case it constitutes part of the rites by which the youth 

 are initiated into manhood, and in the Sandwich Islands it is performed 

 as a propitiatory sacrifice to the spirits of the dead. 



The projection forward of the front upper teeth, which we think 

 unbecoming, is admired by some races, and among the negro women 

 of Senegal it is increased by artificial means employed in childhood.* 



All these modifications of form of comparatively external and 

 flexible parts are, however, trivial in their effects upon the body to 

 those which I shall speak of next, which induce permanent structural 

 alterations both upon the bony framework and upon the important 

 organs within. 



Whatever might be the case with regard to the hair, the ears, the 

 nose, and lips, or even the teeth, it might have been thought that the 

 actual shape of the head, as determined by the solid skull, would not 

 have been considered a subject to be modified according to the fashion 



* Hamy, " Revue d' Anthropologic," January, 1879, p. 22, 



