108 
HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
girdle in the manner shown in the accompanying 
sketch where they have been artificially sepa¬ 
rated to allow of representation. The length of 
the pendent strands may be as long as 10 inches, 
and the breadth of the apron which they form 
when in close apposition is from 6 to 8 inches, 
so that it is large enough to conceal the parts 
which it is intended to cover. I only saw one 
of these articles in use, but it is shown on one 
of the female figures, in Plate XI., Fig. 9. 
North of the McDonnells it is much more com¬ 
monly worn. 
Amongst the males a pattern is frequently seen which resembles, in smaller 
form, that just described, the vertical strands not usually exceeding 5 inches or the 
width of the apron 3 or 4 inches ; otherwise the structure is the same, and it is 
worn suspended in the same way from a hair or fur waist-girdle. In the most 
common form very short twisted, or plaited, strands of fur-string (about 2 inches in 
length) are, in precisely the same way as that just described, looped round a still 
shorter horizonal length of the same material. The latter is then bent on the 
free side— i.e.^ on the side opposite to that from which the looped strands 
proceed, and the two ends are brought together and joined. The result is that 
which has been described as a flat fan-shaped tassel (Plate VI., Fig. 8), the 
strands now radiating from a centre instead of hanging vertically and parallel to 
one another as in the previous pattern. This form is attached with wallaby 
tendon to the pubic hairs, and, as already stated, its small size renders it quite 
ridiculous as a covering. Occasionally human hair is used for its manufacture. 
An ornamental and much more efficient covering not unfrequently seen is made 
of the black and white tail tips of Peragale lagotis. The skin is removed from the 
tip of the tail of sufficient length to include some of the black fur as well as the 
terminal white tuft, or it may be that only a strip is taken from the dorsal 
surface. This strip is wound in a close spiral round a central core of hair-string. 
Three or four tail tips thus prepared are joined together in a bundle by binding 
the hair cores together with tendon, and several bundles are similarly united to 
form a large tassel comprising two dozen tail tips or more, of which, however, the 
constituent tail tips do not hang at the same level. The aggregate of hair cores, 
loosely twisted together, forms a waist-girdle from which the tassel hangs, or it 
may hang from one of the larger hair girdles which have been described. In one 
