XIII ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING i6i 



wishes to resist she can easily l)reak away, but this sort 

 of ideutiiication of a girl l»y the dancing warrior 

 occasions great mirth. The girls press quite closely to 

 the (huicing ring." (Cunningham.) 



The iShiliuks living on the west bank of the White 

 Nile adopt a somewhat similar mode. The hair is 

 shaved from the front part of the head, but at the back 

 it is allowed to grow and felt in such a way that it 

 looks at a distance as if the man had a Ijroad-brimmed 

 cloth hat stuck on the back of his head. Close at hand 

 it resembles the nimlius which surrounds the head of a 

 saint in pictures, and the felted hair like a nimbus is 

 deficient at the nape of the neck. The Dinkas around 

 Bor, on the cast liank of the Bahr-el-Gebel, adopt a 

 ditferent i)lan, for thev encourao'e the hair to otow long 

 and stand on end. Some shave the scalp except a 

 strip two inches broad along the middle of the head 

 extending from the forehead to the nape of the neck. 

 In this zone the hair is trained to stand on end, and, as 

 it is often two or three inches long, produces a con- 

 dition reseml)ling the crisp horse-hair on the crest of a 

 Grecian helmet, or, the mane of an ass. 



The Dodinga dress their hair in an unusual way : — 

 The hair is daubed with clay and made into a mass 

 which is moulded round the head into the shape of an 

 inverted bowl. The haii' is left attached to the crown. 

 As the hair grows, the mass loosens until it looks like a 

 big bonnet. The chief man covers the convex surface 

 of this mass of hair and clay with discs of leather. 

 Each disc has an average diameter of two inches and on 

 the leather they sew white and red beads in a spiral 

 pattern. This extraordinary fashion of hair-dressing has 

 been described and figured by Major Powell-Cotton. 

 There is an excellent specimen of the Dodinga chignon 

 in the British Museum ornamented with rows of shells. 



Bleached hair is a favourite fashion with some of 

 the Somali dandies. This alteration in colour is produced 

 Ijy plastering the hair with C[uicklime. The lime 



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