286 FROM ISHOGO TO ASHANGO-LAND. Chap. XV. 



many file their upper incisors and two or three of 

 the lower ones to a point. 



The men and women ornament themselves with 

 red powder, made by rubbing two pieces of bar-w^ood 

 together ; but their most remarkable fashions relate 

 to the dressing of the hair. On my arrival at 

 Igoumbie, I had noticed how curious the head-dresses 

 of the women were, being so unlike the fashions I 

 had seen among any of the tribes I had visited. 

 Although these modes are sometimes very grotesque, 

 they are not devoid of what English ladies, w^ith 

 their present fashions, might consider good taste : in 

 short, they cultivate a remarkable sort of chignons. I 

 have remarked three different ways of hair-dressing 

 as most prevalent among the Ishogo belles. The 

 first is to train the hair into a tower-shaped mass 

 elevated from eight to ten inches from the crown of 

 the head ; the hair from the forehead to the base of 

 the tow^er, and also that of the back part up to the 

 ears, being closely shaved off. In order to give 

 shape to the tower, they make a framework, gene- 

 rally out of old pieces of grass-cloth, and fix the hair 

 round it. All the chignons are worked up on a 

 frame. Another mode is to wear the tower, with 

 two round balls of hair, one on each side, above 

 the ear. 



A third fashion is similar to the first, but the 

 tower, instead of being perpendicular to the crown, 

 is inclined obliquely from the back of the head, and 

 the front of the head is clean shaven almost to the 

 middle. The neck is also shorn closely up to the 

 ears. 



