XX 



HAIR AND NAILS 



319 



here, that such nails should not be considered deformities, 

 but rather as natural growth, and that to clip and mutilate 

 them as we do is the departure from nature's intention. 

 But this is not so. It is only by constant artificial care 

 and protection that such an extraordinary and inconvenient 

 length can be obtained. When the hands are subjected to 

 the normal amount of use, the nails break or wear away at 

 their free ends in a ratio equal 

 to their growth, as with the 

 claws or hoofs of animals in a 

 wild state. 



The exceedingly widespread 

 custom of tattooing 1 the skin 

 may also be alluded to here, 

 as the result of the same 

 propensity as that which pro- 

 duces the more serious deforma- 

 tions presently to be spoken of. 

 The rudest form of the art was 

 practised by the now extinct 

 Tasmanians and some tribes of 

 Australians, whose naked bodies 

 showed linear or oval raised scars, 

 arranged in a definite manner 

 on the shoulders and breast. 

 These were produced by gashes 

 inflicted with sharp stones, into 

 which wood-ashes were rubbed, 

 so as to allow of healing only under unfavourable conditions, 

 leaving permanent large and elevated cicatrices, conspicuous 

 from being of a lighter colour than the rest of the skin. From 

 this it is a considerable step in decorative art to the elaborate 

 and often beautiful patterns, wreaths, scrolls, spirals, zigzags' 

 etc., sometimes confined to the face, and sometimes covering 

 the whole body from head to foot, seen in the natives of 

 many of the Polynesian Islands. These are permanently im- 



1 A word used by the natives of Tahiti, spelt tattowing by Cook, who gives a 

 minute account of the method in which it is performed in that island. First 

 Voyage, vol. ii. p. 191. 



FIG. 13. Hand of Chinese ascetic. 

 From Tylor's Anthropology. 



