198 \ PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



The colour of their skin is paler than that of the 

 Papuans— some of them indeed are almost yellow — but 

 they are so indescribably dirty that it is not easy to 

 know what is their true colour ; they have also an ugly 

 habit of smearing their faces with a black oily mixture. 

 Neither tattooing nor cicatrization appears to be prac- 

 tised by them. The septum of the nose is always 

 pierced and in it they occasionally wear a curved boar's 

 tusk planed down to a thin slip, or a short piece of 

 straight bone ; the alac nasi are not pierced. The nose 

 is straight and very wide at the nostrils. The upper lip 

 of many of the men is long and curiously convex. 



The hair is short and w^oolly and black ; many of 

 the men give a lighter shade to the hair with lime or 

 mud, and in two or three cases it seemed to be of a 

 brown colour without any p.rtificial treatment. They 

 appear to begin to grow bald at a comparatively early 

 age. The younger men grow whiskers and the older 

 have short bushy black beards. There is a good deal 

 of short downy black hair scattered about the body. 

 Their eyes are noticeably larger and rounder than those of 

 the Papuans, and there is in them something sleepy and 

 dog-like which gives a pathetic expression to their faces.* 



When we first saw them one or two men wore 

 curious helm£yike_£a£S_of_plaited fibres and another 

 had a strip of fur round his head ; otherwise they are 

 completely naked except for the remarkable gourd 

 case described above (p. 161). Strangely enough they 

 are extremely modest and unwilling to expose them- 

 selves ; when with some difficulty we had persuaded 

 * For their cranial measurements see Appe?idix. 



