CLOTHING. 213 



hard wood. It is a marvel how, having no pillows, they can 

 sleep. I asked one woman how she could do so, and she assured 

 me that without the lumps they cannot sleep well, and that it 

 is comfortable to feel the hard lumps under the head when 

 lying down." * Mr. Eichardson gives much the same descrip- 

 tion, with this in addition : " Her hair (that of a Bara belle) 

 is done up into knobs as in the case of the men, but the 

 chignon (a large lump at the top) is bedecked with beads and 

 representations in brass of oxen, which are inserted by a long 

 pin ; and in addition there is another large knob exactly over 

 the centre of the forehead, round which are fixed three arm- 

 let rings, and to the top and sides from four to twenty brass- 

 headed nails, and a few silver and long coral beads are 

 inserted. The two knobs of hair on each side of this ' top- 

 knot' are also decorated with brass nails." 



Clothing. — Among the Beteileo, Tanala, and the tribes of 

 the south-east coast, large use is made of mats for clothing. 

 These are of grass, zozbro or papyrus peel, and hdzondrdno, 

 a tough kind of rush. These mats are sewn into a kind of 

 sack, which is kept in its place by a girdle of coarse cloth 

 made from the bark of trees. This use of bark for cloth is, 

 doubtless, one of the many proofs of the connection between 

 the Malagasy and the Polynesian peoples. All these latter, 

 it is well known, are most skilful in the manufacture of 

 beautiful and delicate materials from the bark of the hibiscus 

 and other species of trees. The bark cloth of the Malagasy 

 tribes is not, however, to be compared with these Polynesian 

 fabrics ; it is rough and brown in colour, and coarse and 

 fibrous in texture, bearing the marks of the grooved mallet 

 heads with which it is beaten out, and has little strength 

 except in the direction of the fibres. Some of the pieces I 

 obtained must have been taken from trees of considerable 

 size, while one specimen had been stripped off the trunk 

 without cutting it lengthways, so that it formed a long 

 bag. 



It may be here remarked, also, that the absence of any 

 employment of skins for clothing by the Malagasy may be 

 considered as a pretty conclusive proof (amongst many 



* Antananarivo Annual, No. ii. p. 106. 



