XIII 



ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING 



THE various forms of hair-dressing adopted by the 

 native tribes of Africa would furnish material for a 

 monograph. The social state of an individual, as well 

 as his tribe, is indicated by the style in which the hair 

 is arranged. In Africa the conditions of hair-dressing 

 are the reverse of those which prevail in civilised 

 countries, for it is the men who affect to have their hair 

 dressed in extravagant fashions ; the women adopt the 

 simplest of all modes, for they shave each other's scalps, 

 the eyebrows, and other regions of the body. African 

 women perform all the menial work of the village and 

 have no time to spare for hair-dressing. 



Among the Kikuyu men some of the styles are very 

 elaborate. A common plan consists in rolling the hair 

 into curls around pieces of bast. Heads treated in this 

 way resemble the backs of a French poodle. Others 

 imitate that adopted by the Masai warriors, in which 

 the hair is thickly anointed with grease, especially 

 mutton fat, and red earth. Thus a heavy shower of 

 rain would be disagreeable ; in order to meet such an 

 emergency the men carry the dried paunch of a sheep 

 or goat with them, and in wet weather wear it like a 

 night-cap. When not in use, this cap, which can be 

 folded up into a small compass, is tied round the waist. 

 When a Kikuyu man has nothing to do he sits in the 

 sun and plucks stray hairs out of his body with forceps 

 with the same industry that monkeys hunt their skins 

 for fleas. 



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