DRESS AND ADORNMENT. 497 



a little timid about looking too long into eyes even very tender 

 when the blue star between them makes you squint." Loret, 

 however, got bravely over both his hesitation and his timidity, 

 and thinks the fashion not altogether bad. 



This body-painting is the most individual of all the modifica- 

 tions we are to consider. Each person in it exercises his own 

 personal caprice or fancy. It is greatly esteemed. To get ma- 

 terial the Huron Indian went twenty miles. Painting serves 

 several purposes : (a) Tylor says the Andaman Islander plasters 

 himself with lard and colored clay as a protection against mos- 

 quitoes and heat, (b) In most of the cases cited, painting is simply 

 for display, (c) It often serves as a sign of mourning, (d) In 

 the " woad " of the Briton and the " war-paint " of the Indian .the 

 purpose is to strike terror. Mougeolles suggests an origin for 

 the practice that seems to us quite reasonable. Red is the com- 

 monest color used in body-painting ; it was probably the earliest. 

 The man who returned from battle covered with blood of hostile 

 man or savage beast was a hero. Such a one might easily seek 

 to constantly remind his neighbors of his success by replacing the 

 real blood-stains by artificial ones as the original wore away. 

 Humboldt says of the Orinocos that "no paint was a dishonor," 

 but also that it was a chief's attribute, and that the chieftaincy 

 was the reward of bravery. Herodotus says that " Thracian 

 chiefs painted as a distinction. And, when in Rome, the victor 

 ascended the Capitoline Hill painted with minium, there can be 

 little doubt that he was simply using a very old symbol of 

 bloody victory. 



Painting is temporary and needs frequent renewal. In many 

 parts of the world we find color designs, elaborate, curious, some- 

 times beautiful, made permanent by tattooing. The pattern and 

 the method vary greatly with locality. In some regions men 

 only tattoo, in others only women, in others both sexes. Here it 

 is confined to the nobles, there to the servile. In Abyssinia 

 women chiefly tattoo. "The whole body is covered; even the 

 gums are pricked blue. An old woman operator's tools were : a 

 pot of blacking (charred herbs), a large iron pin, bits of hollow 

 cane, and pieces of straw these last for pencils. She marks out 

 the design, pricks dots with the pin loaded with the dye, and 

 goes over it repeatedly. To allay the subsequent irritation it is 

 plastered over with a green poultice ; the scab must not be picked 

 off" (Wood). 



Very different, and only interesting because of its novelty, is 

 the method of tattoo found among some Eskimos. The pattern is 

 sketched and threads are passed under the skin. These threads 

 are loaded with pigment, and are drawn back and forth until the 

 pigment is taken into the skin, when the threads are removed. 



