SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS. 655 



Reindeer period, brought to their caves any brilliant or 

 singular objects which they happened to find. Savages at 

 the present day everywhere deck themselves with plumes, 

 necklaces, armlets, ear-rings, etc. They paint themselves 

 in the most diversified manner. '' If painted nations," as 

 Humboldt observes, ^^had been examined with the same 

 attention as clothed nations, it would have been perceived 

 that the most fertile imagination and the most mutable 

 caprice have created the fashions of painting, as well as 

 those of garments/' 



In one part of Africa the eyelids are colored black; in 

 another the nails are colored yellow or purple. In many 

 places the hair is dyed of various tints. In different coun- 

 tries the teeth are stained black, red, blue, etc., and in 

 the Malay Archipelago it is thought shameful to have white 

 teeth, " like those of a dog.'' Not one great country can 

 be named, from the Polar regions in the north to New 

 Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo 

 themselves. This practice was followed by the Jews of old, 

 and by the ancient Britons. In Africa some of the natives 

 tattoo themselves, but it is a much more common practice 

 to raise protuberances by rubbing salt into incisions made 

 in various parts of the body; and these are considered by 

 the inhabitants of Kordofan and Darfur ^^to be great per- 

 sonal attractions." In the Arab countries no beauty can 

 be perfect until the cheeks '' or temples have been gashed."* 

 In South America, as Humboldt remarks, "2k mother would 

 be accused of culpable indifference toward her children if 

 she did not employ artificial means to shape the calf of the 

 leg after the fashion of the country." In the Old and Xew 

 Worlds the shape of the skull was formerly modified during 

 infancy in the most extraordinary manner, as is still the 

 case in many places, and such deformities are considered 

 ornamental. For instance, the savages of Colombiaf 

 deem a much flattened head " an essential point of beauty." 



The hair is treated with especial care in various countries; 

 it is allowed to grow to full length, so as to reach to the 

 ground, or is combed into '^a compact frizzled mop, which 



*" The Nile Tributaries," 1867; " The Albert N'yanza," 1866, vol. 

 i. p. 218. 



f Quoted by Pricbard. " Phys. Hist, of Mankind," 4tU edit., vol. i, 

 1851, p. 331, 



