SAVAGE IBOOKS. 
193 
much raised and corrugated as possible, which is only 
attained bj a tedious process in cicatrizing the wounds. 
The hair is done up into a number of little knobs with 
red clay and palm-oil, or drawn down behind and 
plastered with an immense mass of earth, weighing 
four or five pounds, and secured Avith grass-thread. 
The body is painted, or rather daubed, rudely over 
with yellow or red clay, so as often to give the most 
frightful and savage look. No European vesture or 
scanty cloth conceals any of his nakedness ; perhaps a 
few dried leaves, some fibres of palm-branch, in front, 
offer an apology for more necessary coverings : but his 
ignorance of civilized requirements prevents his feeling 
any constraint in the presence of a white man. Most 
of them wear flat circular grass hats; others in shape 
not unlike a small bee-hive, and decorated with the 
feathers of the green parrot or magnificent blue plan- 
tain-eater, together with bones of snakes, monkeys, 
dogs, &c., &c. ; but if a chief, a priest, or buyeh-rupi, 
the all-potent amulet of a goat’s head stands forth as 
the frontispiece. The flat hats are secured to the hair 
by a wooden skewer. 
On meeting a stranger it is usual with them to 
advance with a sort of dancing motion, the lono’ 
wooden spear raised on high, as if to be brought into 
immediate use, conveying anything but a comfortable 
feeling to the mind of the spectator, who cannot on a 
first occasion divest himself of the belief that the wild 
ballet is the precursor to a tragedy. No sooner, how- 
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