hairy man. This fashion is carried so far that the Indians of Paraguay
eradicate their eyebrows and eyelashes, saying that they do not wish to
be like horses. (63. North American Indians, by G. Catlin, 3rd ed.,
1842, vol. i. p. 49; vol. ii, p. 227. On the natives of Vancouver s
Island, see Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, 1868, p. 25.
On the Indians of Paraguay, Azara, Voyages, tom. ii. p. 105.)
It is remarkable that throughout the world the races which are almost
completely destitute of a beard dislike hairs on the face and body, and
take pains to eradicate them. The Kalmucks are beardless, and they are
well known, like the Americans, to pluck out all straggling hairs; and
so it is with the Polynesians, some of the Malays, and the Siamese. Mr.
Veitch states that the Japanese ladies all objected to our whiskers,
considering them very ugly, and told us to cut them off, and be like
Japanese men. The New Zealanders have short, curled beards; yet they
formerly plucked out the hairs on the face. They had a saying that
there is no woman for a hairy man; but it would appear that the
fashion has changed in New Zealand, perhaps owing to the presence of
Europeans, and I am assured that beards are now admired by the Maories.
(64. On the Siamese, Prichard, ibid. vol. iv. p. 533. On the Japanese,
Veitch in Gardeners Chronicle, 1860, p. 1104. On the New Zealanders,
Mantegazza, Viaggi e Studi, 1867, p. 526. For the other nations
mentioned, see references in Lawrence, Lectures on Physiology, etc.,
1822, p. 272.)
On the other hand, bearded races admire and greatly value their beards;
among the Anglo-Saxons every part of the body had a recognised value;
the loss of the beard being estimated at twenty shillings, while the
breaking of a thigh was fixed at only twelve. (65. Lubbock, Origin of
Civilisation, 1870, p. 321.) In the East men swear solemnly by their
beards. We have seen that Chinsurdi, the chief of the Makalolo in
Africa, thought that beards were a great ornament. In the Pacific the
Fijian s beard is profuse and bushy, and is his greatest pride ;
whilst the inhabitants of the adjacent archipelagoes of Tonga and Samoa
are beardless, and abhor a rough chin. In one island alone of the
Ellice group the men are heavily bearded, and not a little proud
thereof. (66. Dr. Barnard Davis quotes Mr. Prichard and others for
these facts in regard to the Polynesians, in Anthropolog. Review,
April 1870, pp. 185, 191.)
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