94 THE PAPUANS: COMPARATIVE NOTES, ETC., 
Their hair is subject to considerable variations in colour and 
texture. He also notices that the distribution of the hair over 
the scalp is the same in Papuans as in Kuropeans, and that, 
therefore, the tufty growth, or grouping, of the hair as a racial 
character must be rejected. 
Generally, the frizzly variety of hair is the most noticeable. 
The straight-growing hair assumes, after a very short growth, 
a cork-screwy form, and becomes, by degrees, a thick, woolly, 
mass or mop, which imparts a negro-like appearance or element 
to the Papuan. 
Besides this finely-frizzled hair, he notes the occurrence of 
coarsely frizzled, wavy, curly, crimpy, and quite straight hair, 
all these varieties occurring quite naturally, without any arti- 
ficial help. 
Although the usual colour is dark brown to black, it varies 
quite as much as the texture; the ends are often chestnut or 
rust-brown, and in children often quite blond; but even in these 
little flaxen heads the roots are invariably dark brown or black. 
These natural and important aberrations in the texture and 
colour of the Papuan hair are further intensified by the applica- 
tion of artificial means, as we hardly ever find it worn in its 
natural state. 
In many tribes it is dressed with lime, wood-ash, vegetable 
dyes, and other extraneous substances, which completely alter 
its original colour from dark brown to reddish-brown or dark 
saffron-yellow, or cause it to become matted into a number of 
greasy locks. In other tribes where no artificial applications 
are considered fashionable the hair is constantly and carefully 
combed by means of the well-known six or eight pronged comb, 
which soon changes its texture. This also occurs through the 
many artistic or grotesque methods of wearing the hair in vogue 
at different places, and differing even in the sexes of one 
locality, and these causes render any hard and fast description 
of Papuan hair as a predominant racial character impossible. 
