18 
HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
tawny or almost tow colour, and wherever this colouration existed it was most 
marked at the tips, though, in some cases it extended to the roots. The peculiarity 
appeared to be quite independent of any artificial bleaching and was not of 
very frequent occurrence. As all natives have their heads equally exposed to 
the weather it is not easy to account for this exceptional feature. 
In the males the pilous system of the face is particularly well-developed into 
a full, often flowing, beard, whiskers and moustache; one man, only, who was 
naturally bare on the face, was met with at Crown Point, and this feature was 
associated with a falsetto voice. Occasionally, but not often, a tendency to 
baldness was observable, and in a few instances there was an abnormal develop¬ 
ment of hair all over the body. 
No instance of albinism or of a condition approaching thereto was observed 
throughout the journey. 
Both sexes when uninfluenced by civilisation, are practically nude, though, in 
the groups that assemble about the stations, the women, and particularly tlie 
younger ones, cover their nakedness with miscellaneous odds and ends of garments 
acquired from the whites. Rarely did the females wear a small apron of native 
manufacture as is usual in some of the more northerly tribes. 
Almost all the men, however, habitually wear a conventional covering in the 
form of a small fan-shaped tassel made out of fur string and not much larger than 
a postage stamp. This is attached to the pubic hairs and is much less etticient as 
a covering than the vine leaf of the sculptor. Its grotesque inadequacy as a 
covering, in fact, rather serves to attract the attention to the parts which it 
pretends to conceal. Still more does this remark apply to an oval concave piece of 
the body whorl of the shell of Melo mthiopica or less frequently of the nacreous 
layer of a valve of the pearl oyster (Meleagrina margaritifera), which is used for a 
similar purpose. These articles find their way by barter from the north-west coast 
to tribes considerably south of the McDonnell Ranges, and, by their prominent 
position and by the contrast of the brilliant white against the dark skin, form an 
object far more conspicuous than efficient for its ostensible purpose. These 
coverings and the various other articles used either as clothing or ornament will 
be dealt with more particularly in a separate section. 
The skin, the natural colour of which presents no departui-e from that charac¬ 
teristic of the Australian race, often has imparted to it a uniformly glossy dark or 
light red brick colouration from general inunction with a mixture of red ochre and 
