DRESS AND ADORNMENT. 793 



and brains of deer rubbed in. Among the Eskimos we find some 

 very handsome garments made of bird-skins. These, as other 

 skins, are softened by being chewed between the teeth. These 

 various cases interestingly show the beginnings of tanning. 



Nature offers ready-made garments in leaves, and, where mod- 

 esty is the motive to dress, we find them used. In New Caledonia 

 men wear a single leaf hanging from a girdle, and in New Guinea 

 a belt of leaves or rushes five inches wide and long behind. Kings- 

 mill women wore a long rope of human hair two hundred to 

 three hundred feet long, to which was hung a dress of leaves. 

 Very interesting is the fact that at Madras, once a year, the whole 

 low caste population put aside their ordinary garments and wear 

 leaves. Later we shall refer to this instance again. 



Nature is not always so kind as in Brazil, where, Tylor says, a 

 man who wishes a garment goes to a shirt tree. He cuts a four or 

 five foot length of trunk or large branch, gets the bark off in an 

 entire tube, which he has then to soak and beat soft and cut slits in 

 for arm-holes. A short length makes a woman's waist. But bark 

 is used as a dress material widely. Throughout a large portion of 

 Oceania the natives have their tapa, masi, or gnatoo cloth, made 

 by beating the bark of the malo tree. Wood quotes the process 

 of manufacture of the gnatoo : 



A circular incision is made around the trees near the roots 

 with a shell, deep enough to penetrate the bark. The tree is then 

 broken off. It is left in the sun for a couple of days to become 

 partly dry, so that the inner and outer bark may be stripped off 

 together without leaving any of it behind. The bark is then 

 soaked in water for a day and a night, and scraped carefully with 

 shells, to remove the outer bark, which is thrown away. It now 

 swells and becomes tougher. Being thus far prepared, beating {too- 

 too) begins. This is done by a mallet a foot long and two inches 

 thick, two sides horizontally grooved a line in depth, with inter- 

 vals of a quarter of an inch. The bark, which is two to three 

 feet long and one to three inches broad, is then laid on a beam of 

 wood six inches long and nine inches broad and thick, which is 

 separated from the ground about an inch by bits of wood, so it may 

 vibrate. Placing the bark before her, the woman beats with her 

 right hand, and moves the bark to and fro with her left, so as to 

 beat it evenly, using the grooved side of the mallet first and then 

 the smooth one. Women generally beat alternately and early in 

 the morning. In about half an hour the material is beaten suffi- 

 ciently thin, and has spread so much laterally as to be square 

 when folded. They double it several times during the process, so 

 as to spread it more equally and to prevent breaking. Thus pre- 

 pared, it is called fetage. The second part of the operation is 

 called cocanga, or printing with cocoa. The berries of the foe are 

 vol. xxxix. 57 



