SEXUAL SELECTION IN RELATION TO MAN 739 



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 Eeindeer 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, arm- 

 lets, earrings, etc. They paint themselves in the most 

 diversified manner. "If painted nations," as Humboldt 

 observes, "had been examined with the same attention 

 as clothed nations, it would have been perceived that the 

 most fertile imagination and the most mutable caprice 

 have created the fashions 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 different coun- 

 tries the teeth are stained black, red, blue, etc., and in the 

 Malay Archipelago it is thought shameful to have white 

 teeth "like thoee 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 tat- 

 too 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 a much more common 

 practice 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 per- 

 sonal attractions. ' ' In the Arab countries no beauty can be 

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

 In South America, as Humboldt remarks, "a mother would 

 be accused of culpable indifference toward her children, if 

 she did not employ artificial means to shape the calf of the 



*■ 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. 



*> "The Nile Tributaries, 1861 ; "The Albert N'yanza," 1866, vol. i. p. 218. 



