846 MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, NANDI, ETC. 



so manv of the Turkana ornaments are made is either of local manu- 

 facture or is obtained from the Karamojo tribes on the west. The 

 brass — since it existed in the country before the arrival of trading 

 caravans from the coast — must have found its way down by degrees from 

 Abvssinia. Old Turkana men sometimes dispense with the great hair bag 

 which is so common among the Silk, and instead comb out and straighten, 

 as far as possible, their own hair (which they encourage to grow as long 

 as possible), and gradually train this hair, without any artificial additions, 

 into a long, pendulous pod considerably over a foot long and only a few 

 inches broad. This pod of hair, like the huge felted bag, is adorned 

 with ostrich feathers, and terminates in a wire tail. The Turkana chiefs, 

 or head-men often wear on top of their coiffure actual liats made of felted 

 human hair and adorned with kauri shells and brass beads. Some of the 

 young men make handsome caps, the outside of which is set with a large 

 number of short black ostrich feathers. 



The skin in both the Turkana and Suk is decorated by a sort of 

 tattoo (see Fig. 472), in continuous lines or rows of spots round the 

 shoulders and upper arms and extending over to the chest. The women 

 generally ornament themselves in the same way over the stomach. These 

 marks do not appear to be made by raised scars, as is so common 

 elsewhere, but apparently by burning the skin, as the Masai women do, 

 with some acrid juice. The women among the Turkana do not shave 

 their heads* Their hair is twisted into a number of tails, which hang 

 straight down over the forehead and at the back of the head. A kind of 

 bast is sometimes plaited in with the hair, to make these pigtails stiff. 

 The Turkana girls ivear small leather aprons over the pudenda, decorated 

 round the edge with innumerable little circular discs of ostrich-egg shell. 

 From the waist-belt there also hangs at the back a long piece of dressed 

 leather, decorated round the edge with brass beads. The front aprons in 

 the married women are long both in front and behind. The women also 

 wear rows of beads round the neck and girdles round the waist of the 

 small bones or teeth of antelopes and goats strung together ; or the girdle 

 may be made of chains of iron or brass rings. The rings and discs in 

 the ears and septum of the nose are like those worn by the men. They 

 also stick the same quills or quill-shaped wires into their lower lips, and 

 wear rings and bracelets round their arms and ankles. The men often 

 wear girdles of large white beads or rounded segments of ostrich-egg shell 

 strung together. 



The Tnrhana, apparently, do not circumcise. Sometimes, like the 

 Masai, they remove one of the lower incisors. The women occasionally wear 



* Contrasting thus with the women of the Suk and Masai, who almost invariably 

 shave their head-hair. 



