December 23, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



357 



prominent citizens, as Senator Sanford, Jolins Hopkins, Clarke, 

 Lick, Cooper, etc. , ought also to take tlie development of bacterio- 

 logical researcii in consideration. Should there not exist a sec- 

 ond Lick, who will help revealing with microscopes mysteries of 

 just as high interest and still more practical bearings, like the 

 first Lick with his telescope helped to reveal mysteries of the 

 heavens? Thus far Europe is ahead in such studies, but I know 

 that the ambitious Americans want to excel all other nations in 

 every respect. The United States is bound to become in every 

 scientific branch the first country on earth. This is my Hrra 

 conviction. 



SOME RELICS OF PRIMITIVE FASHIONS IN INDIA. 



BY MR. KEDABNATH BASU, COR. MEMB. ANTBROP. SOCIETY, BOMBAY. 



" The ideal," says Theophile Gautier, ' • torments even the rudest 

 natures. The savage who tattoos his body, or plasters it with 

 red or blue paint, who passes a fish-bone through his nostrils, is 

 acting in obedience to a confused sense of beauty. He seeks 

 something beyond what actually is; guided by an obscure notion 

 of art, he endeavors to perfect his type. " Coquetry and neoterism 

 are the peculiar characteristics of man. From the dawn of the 

 Stone Age onwards man is known to have adorned himself with 

 feathers, coral, shells, bone, wood, and stone ornaments; but the 

 exact time when he commenced painting and tattooing his body 

 and face is beyond the ken of history. 



Tattooing the body and the face is one of the favorite, though 

 painful, methods of adorning the body among savages, more es- 

 pecially among the Polynesian Islanders. This savage ornamen- 

 tation of the body has permeated many of the so-called civilized 

 and semi-civilized people, such as the modern Hindoos, the Bur- 

 mese, etc. There is no mention of this savage and rude art, to 

 my knowledge, in any of the ancient Sanscrit works, where other 

 methods of decorating and ornamenting the body in all times and 

 on all occasions are put down in detail. This art, if it may be so 

 called, was not known to the aborigines of India till a recent 

 date, and it may, therefore, be surmised that the Hindoos bor- 

 rowed the rude and savage art from some race or races outside of 

 India. I strongly incline to believe that this practice came to 

 India from the Malayan Archipelago through Burmah to eastern 

 Bengal, and through southern India upwards to the whole rorthern 

 part of India. 



The rude and savage custom of tattooing is still in vogue among 

 almost all classes of Hindoo females and in almost all parts of 

 India. The face, chest, and the arms are generally tattooed with 

 varied and fantastic designs. The remnant of the savage custom 

 of painting the person is to be seen in the red paint over the fore- 

 head, extending to the crown, among the married women of 

 India. Both of these customs are rapidly waning with the refine- 

 ment of the people. I do not see the same profusion, as I saw 

 ten or twelve years ago, of tattoo-marks and red-ochre or red 

 oxide of lead (sindur) over the forehead and crown among the 

 women of Bengal. The rapid stride of female education and 

 the consequent refinement in sesthetic taste are the causes of the 

 decline of this rude and savage adornment; but the people of 

 Behar, the North- Western Provinces, etc., still cling to these rem- 

 nants of savagery. The up country women, besides tattooing 

 their bodies and painting the head with red paint, bore the lower 

 lobes of their ears, and insert big and heavy wooden cylindrical 

 plugs, which almost sever the lobes from the ears. The plugs are 

 sometimes as big as two inches in length with a diameter of an 

 inch and a half, and as much as two ounces in weight. These 

 heavy plugs pull down the lobes of the ears as far as the shoulders, 

 and give the wearers a hideous look. The Marwaree women, be- 

 sides tattooing their bodies and faces, ornament their upper in- 

 cisors by drilling holes and plugging them with gold, and some- 

 times with carvings or engravings. The latter ornamentation is 

 usually in the form of two or more concenti'ic rings. The women 

 in the North- West Provinces, Behar, Bengal, and elsewhere some- 

 times, color their teeth black with a kind of astringent tooth- 

 powder, called misi or manjan. Painting the feet with scarlet 

 paint (alakta) is prevalent among the Hindoo women from a re- 

 mote age. The Mahomedan women, and the Hindoo women 



after them, paint the tips of their fingers and the palms with 

 henna {Lawsonia alba) leaves. The Jains, on certain social cere- 

 monies, paint their hands and feet with henna leaves. The up- 

 country and Marwaree women wear their sarees and petticoats 

 below the navel, and artificially cause the muscles of the belly to 

 hang down loosely in a fold over their wearing apparel, thus 

 causing an ugly appearance to the contour of the trunk. Some 

 of the men also adopt this fashion, and destroy the natural beauty 

 of the abdomen. 



The Burmese men tattoo their entire bodies from the legs up to 

 the chest and shoulders with blue and red pigments, with designs of 

 animals and dragons. The lower limbs from the waist down to 

 the ankles are tattooed in blue, while the parts above the waist 

 are ornamented in red. These people tattoo their bodies as a mark 

 of manhood, and ascribe special charms to every particular design. 

 A Burmese priest or phoongie told me that men only are decked 

 with tattoo- marks, the women do not mar their natural beauty 

 with permanent pigments. The Burmese women look down with 

 contempt upon men who fail to tattoo their persons, and would 

 not marry a man who has not been tattooed. But the Mugs, both 

 men and women, tattoo their bodies. 



The wings of butterflies and wing-cases of beetles were, and 

 are to some extent, in use as ornaments among tlie women of 

 India. The wings of butterflies have now given place to artificial 

 ones, made of mica sheets and paints, which, however, bear the 

 name of butterflies or ticklies. The wing-cases of gaudy beetles 

 are still in use in Bengal and elsewhere. The wing-cases of the 

 Indian blister-fly (locally known as Kdnch pSkd, or glass insect), 

 are generally used by women of Bengal. These wing-cases and 

 ticklies are worn stuck upon the forehead, in the space betweea 

 the eyebrows, or a little above it. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The vtriter's name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



On request in advance, one hundred copies of the number containing his 

 communication will be furnished free to any correspondent. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character 

 of the journal. 



Notes on a Captive Pocket-Mouse. 



In November, 1889, 1 found a pocket-mouse (Perognathus fallax) 

 in one of my traps, alive and unhurt, though torpid with cold, 

 and took a fancy to keep it a captire to study its habits. It 

 warmed slowly, and was some hours in regaining its usual state 

 of activity. I have found individuals of other species and genera 

 of this family {Saccomyidce) chilled in traps, and it seems proba- 

 ble that, while they can bear considerable cold if free to move 

 about rapidly, if compelled to keep quiet, they speedily succumb 

 to cold. On this November morning the cold was sufficient to 

 produce but a slight rime on the grass. This pocket-mouse was 

 not wild, but allowed handling freely from the first. It would 

 walk up my sleeve, around my neck, and down the other arm, 

 and for a year or more would not try to jump to the floor, but 

 later it seemed to have lost the sense of depth, and now it will 

 jump down after a little walking about, even if the fall is far 

 enough to injure it. It has never tried to bite me, and will! 

 quietly bear stroking and carrying about in my hand, though it 

 seems to be getting somewhat wilder. I put it in a wooden box 

 of perhaps a cubic foot in capacity, and put in an inch or so in 

 depth of dry sand. For the first two years its habit was to dia: 

 and scratch in this sand each night, often making noise enoughi 

 that I could hear it through my closed bed-room door, just outside- 

 of which the box was placed, but I never heard it scratching in. 

 daylight, and for some months I have not heard it in the night. 

 It has not gnawed the wood as true mice would have done, and 

 has not lifted the lid, which was kept closed by but its weight. 

 If taken nut of the box after dark and turned loose on the floor 

 of the sitting-room, it moves about actively a few minutes, usually 

 by short, deliberate, rabbit-like jumps, but if frightened it leaps 

 two feet or more, as if shot off by a spring. After it has satisfled 

 its curiosity, it creeps into some dark place behind a piece ol 

 furaiture. In daytime it hunts a dark place immediately, if aU 



