enough by the labour of a fortnight to procure in exchange the chica
necessary to paint himself red. (43. Humboldt, Personal Narrative,
Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 515; on the imagination shewn in painting
the body, p. 522; on modifying the form of the calf of the leg, p.
466.) The ancient barbarians of Europe during the Reindeer period
brought to their caves any brilliant or singular objects which they
happened to find. Savages at the present day everywhere deck themselves
with plumes, necklaces, armlets, ear-rings, etc. They paint themselves
in the most diversified manner. If painted nations, as Humboldt
observes, had been examined with the same attention as clothed
nations, it would have been perceived that the most fertile imagination
and the most mutable caprice have created the fashions of painting, as
well as those of garments.
In one part of Africa the eyelids are coloured black; in another the
nails are coloured yellow or purple. In many places the hair is dyed of
various tints. In different countries the teeth are stained black, red,
blue, etc., and in the Malay Archipelago it is thought shameful to have
white teeth like those of a dog. Not one great country can be named,
from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in
which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. This practice was
followed by the Jews of old, and by the ancient Britons. In Africa some
of the natives tattoo themselves, but it is a much more common practice
to raise protuberances by rubbing salt into incisions made in various
parts of the body; and these are considered by the inhabitants of
Kordofan and Darfur to be great personal attractions. In the Arab
countries no beauty can be perfect until the cheeks or temples have
been gashed. (44. The Nile Tributaries, 1867; The Albert N yanza,
1866, vol. i. p. 218.) In South America, as Humboldt remarks, a mother
would be accused of culpable indifference towards her children, if she
did not employ artificial means to shape the calf of the leg after the
fashion of the country. In the Old and New Worlds the shape of the
skull was formerly modified during infancy in the most extraordinary
manner, as is still the case in many places, and such deformities are
considered ornamental. For instance, the savages of Colombia (45.
Quoted by Prichard, Physical History of Mankind, 4th ed. vol. i.
1851, p. 321.) deem a much flattened head an essential point of
beauty.
The hair is treated with especial care in various countries; it is
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