Part 26 (1/2)
By the Tasmanians ”the bones of relatives were worn around the neck, less, perhaps, as ornaments than as charms.”[75] The Ainos of j.a.pan and the Fijians held that tattooing was a custom introduced by the G.o.ds. Fijian women believed ”that to be tattooed is a pa.s.sport to the other world, where it prevents them from being persecuted by their own s.e.x.”[76] An Australian custom ordained that every person must have the septum of the nose pierced and must wear in it a piece of bone, a reed, or the stalks of some gra.s.s. This was not done, however, with the object of adorning the person, but for superst.i.tious reasons: ”the old men used to predict to those who were averse to this mutilation all kinds of evil.” The sinner, they said, would suffer in the next world by having to eat filth. ”To avoid a punishment so horrible, each one gladly submitted, and his or her nose was pierced accordingly.”
(Brough Smyth, 274.) Wilhelmi says that in the Northwest the men place in the head-band behind the ears pieces of wood decorated with very thin shavings and looking like plumes of white feathers. They do this ”on occasions of rejoicings and when engaged in their mystic ceremonies.” Nicaraguans trace the custom of flattening the heads of children to instructions from the G.o.ds, and Pelew Islanders believed that to win eternal bliss the septum of the nose must be perforated, while Eskimo girls were induced to submit to having long st.i.tches made with a needle and black thread on several parts of the face by the superst.i.tious fear that if they refused they would, after death, be turned into train tubs and placed under the lamps in heaven.[77] In order that the ghost of a Sioux Indian may travel the ghost road in safety, it is necessary for each Dakota during his life to be tattooed in the middle of the forehead or on the wrists. If found without these, he is pushed from a cloud or cliff and falls back to this world.[78] In Australia, the Kurnai medicine men were supposed to be able to communicate with ghosts only when they had certain bones thrust through the nose.[79] The _American Anthropologist_ contains (July, 1889) a description of the various kinds of face-coloring to indicate degrees in the Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa. These Indians frequently tattooed temples, forehead, or cheeks of sufferers from headache or toothache, in the belief that this would expel the demons who cause the pain. In Congo, scarifications are made on the back for therapeutic reasons; and in Timor-Laut (Malay Archipelago), both s.e.xes tattooed themselves ”in imitation of immense smallpox marks, in order to ward off that disease.”[80]
MOURNING LANGUAGE
Australian women of the Port Lincoln tribes paint a ring around each eye and a streak over the stomach, and men mark their b.r.e.a.s.t.s with stripes and paints in different patterns. An ignorant observer, or an advocate of the s.e.xual selection theory, would infer that these ”decorations” are resorted to for the purpose of ornamentation, to please individuals of the opposite s.e.x. But Wilhelmi, who understood the customs of these tribes, explains that these divers stripes and paints have a practical object, being used to ”indicate the different degrees of relations.h.i.+p between a dead person and the mourners.”[81]
In South Australia widows in mourning ”shave their heads, cover them with a netting, and plaster them with pipe-clay”[82]. A white band around the brow is also used as a badge of mourning[83]. Taplin says that the Narrinyeri adorn the bodies of the dead with bright-red ochre, and that this is a wide-spread custom in Australia. A Dyeri, on being asked why he painted red and white spots on his skin, answered: ”Suppose me no make-im, me tumble down too; that one [the corpse]
growl along-a-me.” A further ”ornament” of the women on these occasions consists in two white streaks on the arm to indicate that they have eaten some of the fat of the dead, according to their custom. (Smyth, I., 120.) In some districts the mourners paint themselves white on the death of a blood relation, and black when a relative by marriage dies. The corpse is often painted red. Red is used too when boys are initiated into manhood, and with most tribes it is also the war-color. Hence it is not strange that they should undertake long journeys to secure fresh supplies of ochre: for war, mourning, and superst.i.tion are three of the strongest motives of savage activity. African Bushmen anoint the heads of the dead with a red powder mixed with melted fat. Hottentots, when mourning, shave their heads in furrows. Damaras wear a dark-colored skin-cap: a piece of leather round the neck, to which is attached a piece of ostrich egg-sh.e.l.l. Coast negroes bury the head of a family in his best clothes and ornaments, and Dahomans do the same[84]. Schweinfurth says that ”according to the custom, which seems to belong to all Africa, as a sign of grief the d.i.n.ka wear a cord round the neck.”[85] Mourning New Zealanders tie a red cloth round the head or wear headdresses of dark feathers. New Caledonians cut off their hair and blacken and oil their faces[85]. Hawaiians cut their hair in various forms, knock out a front tooth, cut the ears and tattoo a spot on the tongue[86]. The Mineopies use three coloring substances for painting their bodies; and by the way they apply them they let it be known whether a person is ill or in mourning, or going to a festival.[87] In California the Yokaia widows make an unguent with which they smear a white band two inches wide all around the edge of the hair[88]. Of the Yukon Indians of Alaska ”some wore hoops of birch wood around the neck and waists, with various patterns of figures cut on them. These were said to be emblems of mourning for the dead.”[89] Among the Snanaimuq ”the face of the deceased is painted with red and black paint... After the death of husband or wife the survivor must paint his legs and his blanket red.”[90] Numerous other instances may be found in Mallery, who remarks that ”many objective modes of showing mourning by styles of paint and markings are known, the significance of which are apparent when discovered in pictographs.”[91]
INDICATIONS OF TRIBE OR RANK
Among the customs which, in Darwin's opinion, show ”how widely the different races of man differ in their taste for the beautiful,” is that of moulding the skull of infants into various unnatural shapes, in some cases making the head ”appear to us idiotic.” One would think that before accepting such a monstrous custom as evidence of any kind of a sense of beauty, Darwin, and those who expressed the same opinion before and after him, would have inquired whether there is not some more rational way of accounting for the admiration of deformed heads by these races than by a.s.suming that they approved of them for _esthetic_ reasons. There is no difficulty in finding several non-esthetic reasons why peculiarly moulded skulls were approved of.
The Nicaraguans, as I have already stated, believed that heads were moulded in order to make it easier to bear burdens, and the Peruvians also said they pressed the heads of children to make them healthier and able to do more work. But vanity--individual or tribal--and fas.h.i.+on were the princ.i.p.al motives. According to Torquemada, the kings were the first who had their heads shaped, and afterward permission to follow their example was granted to others as a special favor. In their cla.s.sical work on Peruvian antiquities (31-32) Eivero and Tschudi describe the skulls they examined., including many varieties ”artificially produced, and differing according to their respective localities.”
”These irregularities were undoubtedly produced by mechanical causes, and were considered as the _distinctive marks of families_; for in one Huaca [cemetery] will always be found the same form of crania; while in another, near by, the forms are entirely different from those in the first.”
The custom of flattening the head was practised by various Indian tribes, especially in the Pacific States, and Bancroft (I., 180) says that, ”all seem to admire a flattened forehead as _a sign of n.o.ble birth_;” and on p. 228, he remarks:
”Failure properly to mould the cranium of her offspring gives the Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy and un-dutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of their companions; so despotic is fas.h.i.+on.”
The Arab races of Africa alter the shapes of their children's heads because they are jealous of their n.o.ble descent. (Bastian, _D.M_., II., 229.)
”The genuine Turkish skull,” says Tylor _(Anth.,_ 240),
”is of the broad Tatar form, while the natives of Greece and Asia Minor have oval skulls, which gives the reason why at Constantinople it became the fas.h.i.+on to mould the babies'
skulls round, so that they grew up with the broad head of the conquering race. Relics of such barbarism linger on in the midst of civilization, and not long ago a French physician surprised the world by the fact that nurses in Normandy were still giving the children's heads a sugar-loaf shape by bandages and a tight cap, while in Brittany they preferred to press it round.”
Knocking out some of the teeth, or filing them into certain shapes, is another widely prevalent custom, for which it is inadmissible to invoke a monstrous and problematic esthetic taste as long as it can be accounted for on simpler and less disputable grounds, such as vanity, the desire for tribal distinction, or superst.i.tion. Holub found (II., 259), that in one of the Makololo tribes it was customary to break out the top incisor teeth, for the reason that it is ”only horses that eat with all their teeth, and that men ought not to eat like horses.” In other cases it is not contempt for animals but respect for them that accounts for the knocking out of teeth. Thus Livingstone relates _(L. Tr_., II., 120), in speaking of a boy from Lomaine, that ”the
upper teeth extracted seemed to say that the tribe have cattle. The knocking out of the teeth is in imitation of the animals they almost wors.h.i.+p.” The Batokas also give as their reason for knocking out their upper front teeth that they wish to be like oxen. Livingstone tells us _(Zamb.,_ 115), that the Manganja chip their teeth to resemble those of the cat or crocodile: which suggests totemism, or superst.i.tious respect for an animal chosen as an emblem of a tribe. That the Australian custom of knocking out the upper front teeth at p.u.b.erty is part of a religious ceremonial, and not the outcome of a desire to make the boys attractive to the girls, as Westermarck navely a.s.sumes (174, 172), is made certain by the details given in Mallery (1888-89, 513-514), including an excerpt from a ma.n.u.script by A.W. Howitt, in which it is pointed out that the humming instrument kuamas, the bull-roarer, ”has a sacred character with all the Australian tribes;”
and that there are marked on it ”two notches, one at each end, representing the gap left in the upper jaw of the novice after his teeth have been knocked out during the rites.”[92] But perhaps the commonest motive for altering the teeth is the desire to indicate tribal connections. ”Various tribes,” says Tylor _(Anthr._ 240), ”grind their front teeth to points, or cut them away in angular patterns, so that in Africa and elsewhere a man's tribe is often known by the cut of his teeth.”
Peculiar arrangements of the hair also have misled unwary observers into fancying that they were made for beauty's sake and to attract the opposite s.e.x, when in reality they were tribal marks or had other utilitarian purposes, serving as elements in a language of signs, etc.
Frazer, _e.g._, notes (27) that the turtle clan of the Omaha Indians cuts off all the hair from a boy's head except six locks which hang down in imitation of the legs, head, and tail of a turtle; while the Buffalo clan arranges two locks of hair in imitation of horns. ”Nearly all the Indian tribes,” writes Mallery (419), ”have peculiarities of the arrangement of the hair and of some article of apparel or accoutrement by which they can always be distinguished.” Heriot relates (294) that among the Indians
”the fas.h.i.+on of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the hair varies in a great degree, and an enemy may by this means be discovered at a considerable distance.” ”The Pueblos generally, when accurate and particular in delineation [pictographs], designate the women of that tribe by a huge coil of hair over either ear. This custom prevails also among the Coyotero Apaches, the woman wearing the hair in coil to denote a virgin or an unmarried person, while the coil is absent in the case of a married woman.”
By the Mokis, maidenhood is indicated by wearing the hair as a disk on each side of the head. (Mallery, 231-32.) Similar usages on other continents might be cited.
Besides these arbitrary modifications of the skull and the teeth, and the divers arrangements of the hair, there are various other ways in which the lower races indicate tribal connection, rank, or other conditions. Writing about negroes Burton says _(Abeok.,_ I., 106), that lines, welts, and all sorts of skin patterns are used, partly for superst.i.tious reasons, partly to mark the different tribes and families. ”A volume would not suffice to explain all the marks in detail.” Of the Dahomans, Forbes says (I., 28), ”that _according to rank and wealth_ anklets and armlets of all metals, and necklaces of gla.s.s, coral, and Popae beads, are worn by both s.e.xes.” Livingstone relates _(Mis. Trav_., 276) that the copper rings worn on their ankles by the chiefs of Londa were so large and heavy that they seriously inconvenienced them in walking. That this custom was entirely an outcome of vanity and emulation, and not a manifestation of the esthetic sense, is made clear by the further observations of Livingstone. Men who could not afford so many of these copper rings would still, he found, strut along as if they had them. ”That is the way,” he was informed, ”in which they show off their lords.h.i.+p in these parts.” Among the Mojave Indians ”nose-jewels designate a man of wealth and rank,” and elaborate headdresses of feathers are the insignia of the chiefs[93]. Champlain says that among the Iroquois those who wore three large plumes were chiefs. In Thurn says (305) that each of the Guiana tribes makes its feather head-dresses of special colors; and Martins has the following regarding the Brazilian Indians: ”Commonly all the members of a tribe, or a horde, or a family, agree to wear certain ornaments or signs as characteristic marks.” Among these are various ornaments of feathers on the head, pieces of wood, stones, or sh.e.l.ls, in the ears, the nose, and lips, and especially tattoo marks.
VAIN DESIRE TO ATTRACT ATTENTION
Thus we see that an immense number of mutilations of the body and alleged ”decorations” of it are not intended by these races as things of beauty, but have special meanings or uses in connection with protection, war, superst.i.tion, mourning, or the desire to mark distinctions between the tribes, or degrees of rank within one tribe or horde. Usually the ”ornamentations” are prescribed for all members of a tribe of the same s.e.x, and their acceptance is rigidly enforced.
At the same time there is scope for variety in the form of deviations or exaggerations, and these are resorted to by ambitious individuals to attract attention to their important selves, and thus to gratify vanity, which, in the realm of fas.h.i.+on, is a thing entirely apart from--and usually antagonistic to--the sense of beauty[94]. At Australian dances various colors are used with the object of attracting attention. Especially fantastic are their ”decorations” at the corroborees, when the bodies of the men are painted with white streaks that make them look like skeletons. Bulmer believed that their object was to ”make themselves as terrible as possible to the beholders and not beautiful or attractive,” while Grosse thinks (65) that as these dances usually take place by moonlight, the object of the stripes is to make the dancers more conspicuous--two explanations which are not inconsistent with each other.