WOMEN OF ALL NATIONS 



51 



it; but savage races, especially when 

 they come in contact with European 

 women for the first time, often com- 

 plain that their sickly hue is not to 

 their liking, and commiserate them. 

 Das evcig Weibliche apparently ceases 

 to be attractive if it is too far from 

 the type to which man is accustomed. 



STRANGE IDEAS OF ADORNMENT 



"A woman without ornament is 

 like a field without water," runs the 

 Eastern proverb ; and, in spite of the 

 fact that the Maoris of New Zealand 

 urge that, "though a woman be ever 

 so plain, men will still run after her," 

 the female sex throughout the world 

 is never averse to add to its personal 

 charms by adventitious aids. 



At the same time it must not be 

 thought that among savages are to 

 be found the choicest and most elab- 

 orate toilets, at least as far as the 

 ladies are concerned. Within certain 

 limits it is true to say that the lower 

 we descend in the scale of civiliza- 

 tion the more nearly the human race 

 is found to approximate to the brute 

 creation, in the fact that it is the 

 sterner sex which is the more bril- 

 liantly ornamented. Under the con- 

 ditions of latter-day civilization, of 

 course, the position is reversed, and 

 the varieties of feminine adornment 

 quite eclipse the somber garb of a mere 

 man, the uniforms of the "services," the 

 coats of huntsmen and golfers, and the 

 ties and waistcoats of undergraduates 

 forming rare exceptions. The most 

 primitive form of ornament consists in 

 the attempt to alter the form of the body 

 in order that it may approximate to some 

 ideal of beauty ; and, as ideals vary from 

 tribe to tribe and from people to people, 

 this attempt is made in divers ways. 



To take a few examples : In Persia, 

 among some of the Turkish and Moorish 

 peoples, and certain African and South 

 American tribes, the ideal of feminine 

 beauty is found in excessive embonpoint, 

 and the women in consequence suit their 

 diet to the fashion. Among certain of 

 the inhabitants of the northwest coast of 



A WOMAN OF NEPAL, OP MONGOLIAN TYPE 



The jewelry is silver, gold, and glass beads. 

 The large beads are of carved wood. Photo from 

 "Women of All Nations,'' Cassell & Co., New 

 York, by Johnston & Hoffmann. 



America, a retreating forehead is essen- 

 tial to true beauty, and the heads of 

 infants are deformed by means of a 

 special appliance fixed to the cradle, so 

 that they may acquire the requisite slope 

 from nose-tip to crown. In some locali- 

 ties in South America tight bandages are 

 worn below the knee in order to produce 

 a swollen calf, and many tribes in Africa 

 employ artificial means to elongate the 

 breasts. 



Polynesian mothers mold the noses of 

 their children to prevent them from 

 growing prominent. The Tahitians fre- 

 quently said to the missionary Williams, 

 "What a pity it is that English mothers, 

 pull the children's noses so much and 

 make them so frightfully long." 



In China the feet of the women are so 



