NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
711 
Necklaces of native beads of shell or cocoannt wood are also worn. Rings of tortoise- 
shell are commonly worn in the ears as at Humboldt Bay. Both waistbelts and armlets 
of fine plaited work, with patterns in yellow and black, are common, resembling those 
of the Arrou Islands and Humboldt Bay (see. PI. H. figs. 2, 3). 
The body is seldom decorated with green leaves, as at Humboldt Bay, but leaves are 
occasionally worn, both hanging down the shoulders and on the arms. Flowers, also, 
are seldom worn, but a single Hibiscus rosa-sinensis flower is sometimes carried in 
the hair. 
The full-grown men are mostly marked with cicatrizations, in the form of circular 
spots about the size of half a crown, which are sparsely disposed over the upper part of 
the chest and shoulders in front, and sometimes continued down the back in two lines 
leading obliquely downwards from the shoulders to meet one another in the middle of 
the back. One full-grown young man of twenty years or so had the spots fresh and 
raw ; they had apparently been raised by burning. 
Tattooing is almost entirely confined to the women, with whom it is universal. Two 
males, however, were tattooed : one, a small boy, had a simple ring-mark round one eye, 
the other, an adult, had rings round both eyes ; these were, however, exceptional cases. 
The tattooing is not made up of fine dots or pricks, but of a series of short lines or cuts ; 1 
the colour is an indigo blue. The women are tattooed with rings round the eyes and 
all over the face, and in diagonal lines over the upper part of the front of the body, the 
lines crossing one another so as -to form a series of lozenge-shaped spaces. The tattooing 
is sparse and scarcely visible at a short distance, and nowhere are the marks placed so 
close to one another as to form coloured patches on the body, as in Fijian women or 
Samoan men. 
The male natives occasionally have their chests and faces coloured with a burnt red 
clay. Sometimes only one lateral half of the face is reddened. When vermilion was 
given to the natives they put it on cleverly and symmetrically in curved lines, leading 
from the nose under each eye, showing that they understood how to use it with effect, 
but magenta was found useless as an article of trade, for it is too transparent to show 
on a dark brown skin, and the natives rejected it directly they tried it. No doubt the 
reason why they do not tattoo themselves is because the tattooing would show so little ; 
perhaps also it is on account of their dark colour that Melanesians generally have so 
largely adopted cicatrization as a substitute. 
It is probable that the natives paint themselves elaborately on festive occasions and 
in time of war. They were fond of being painted, and two natives who were painted 
on board all over with engine-room oil-paint, yellow and green, in stripes and various 
facetious designs, were delighted. They were also often -coloured black over the faces 
1 Probably made with obsidian flakes. It is said that the Solomon Islanders are tattooed with short outs 
made in this way. 
(narr. chall. exp. — vol. i. — 1885 .) 
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