Chap. XIX.] LOVE OF ORNAMENTS. 323 



The extravagance of the naked Indians of South America 

 in decorating themselves is shown " by a man of large 

 stature gaining with difficulty enough by the labor of a 

 fortnight to procure in exchange the chica necessary to 

 paint himself red," " The ancient barbarians of Europe 

 during the 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 ex- 

 amined with the same attention as clothed nations, it 

 would have been perceived that the most fertile imagina- 

 tion and the most mutable caprice have created the fash- 

 ions 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 diiferent 

 countries 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 much more common 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 personal 

 attractions." In the Arab countries no beauty can be 

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



^^ Humboldt, 'Personal Narrative,' Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 515; on 

 the imagination shown in painting the body, p. 522 ; on modifying the 

 form of the calf of the leg, p. 466. 



3»'The Nile Tributaries,' 1867; 'The Albert N'yanza,' 1866, voli. 

 p. 218. 



