The Mafulu Part 3

Capes made of bark cloth are made and worn by men and women. They are only put on after recovery from an illness by which the wearer has been laid up, including childbirth. The cape is simply a plain long narrow piece of undyed bark cloth. The corners of one end are fastened together, and the whole of that end is bunched up into a sort of hood, which is placed over the head, whilst the rest of the cloth hangs down as a narrow strip behind. The cape in no way covers or conceals any part of the body when viewed from the front or side. It is only worn for a few days; but whilst wearing it the wearer discards all, or nearly all, his or her ornaments. I could learn no reason for the custom. Plates 18 and 19 show these capes, and the way in which they are worn.

Mourning strings (Plate 30, Fig. 1) are made and worn by both men and women. These are plain undecorated necklaces varying much in size and appearance; sometimes they are made of undyed twisted bark cloth, and vary in thickness from one-sixteenth of an inch to an inch; sometimes they are only made of string, and are quite thin. There is always an end or ta.s.sel to the necklace, made out of the extremities of the neck part, and hanging in front over the chest; and, if the necklace is of string, and not of bark cloth, some bark cloth is twisted round this ta.s.sel. This sign of grief is after a death worn by the widow or widower or other nearest relative (male or female) of the deceased; and at times two people of equal degree of relations.h.i.+p will both wear it. It is worn until the formal ending of the mourning. The woman to the extreme right in Plate 26 is wearing one of these.

Widows' vests. These are mourning garments, only worn by the widows of chiefs. The garment, which is made by women, is a vest made of string network (like a string bag), the mesh of which is the special Mafulu mesh, which will be described hereafter, and it is not coloured. It is plainly and simply made, with openings at the top for the neck, and at the sides for the arms (no sleeves), and coming down to about the waist, without any other opening either in front or at the back. This garment is also worn until the formal end of the period of mourning. [39] I was unable to secure a picture of one of these.

There is no special dress for chiefs to distinguish them from other people.

European calico clothing has not been adopted by these people, even in the district where they are in touch with the missionaries. Indeed I may say that the people, happily for their own health, show no inclination to wear more clothing; and no doubt as a result of their conservatism in this respect they escape many a fatal cold and attack of pneumonia, and the spread of infectious skin diseases is somewhat reduced. I may also add that the Bishop and Fathers of the Mission do not attempt, or seem to desire, to urge the people who come under their influence to endanger their health and their lives for the sake of conforming to views as to clothing which have played such havoc with tropical natives in many parts of the globe. [40]

Physical Body Decoration, &c.

Tattooing and body-scarring are not practised by either men or women among the Mafulu.

Depilation. When a young man's beard begins to grow, the hairs of the beard and moustache and eye-brows are extracted. No other depilation is practised by men, and none whatever by women; and none of them shave any part of the body. The depilation is effected with two fibre threads twisted round each other, the hair to be extracted being inserted between the threads. Anyone can do this, and there is no ceremony connected with it.

Nose-piercing. The septa of the noses of both men and women are pierced at or after the age of 15 or 18, and either before or after marriage. This is done for men by men, and for women by women. There is no special person whose duty it is to do it, but he or she must be one who knows the incantations which are required. There is no restriction as to diet or otherwise placed upon the operator prior to the operation, but there is a day's food restriction imposed upon the person whose nose is to be pierced.

Two instruments are used for the operation, one being a piercing instrument made of pig bone and sharpened, and the other being a small wooden plug, also sharpened. The operator first visibly, but silently, engages in two incantations, during the former of which he holds up the thumb and first finger of his right hand, and during the latter of which he holds up the two instruments. He then with the thumb and first finger of his right hand holds the septum of the nose of the person to be operated upon, whom I will call the "patient," and with the left hand pierces the septum with the bone instrument. He next inserts the wooden plug into the hole, so as to make it larger, and leaves the plug there. Then he takes a blade of gra.s.s, which he also inserts through the hole, by the side of the plug, and, holding the gra.s.s by the two ends, he makes it rotate round and round the plug. This is a painful process, which frequently causes tears and cries from the patient. He then probably goes through the same process with various other patients, as it is the custom to operate on several persons at the same time.

The patients are then all lodged in houses built for the purpose, one house being for men and one for women. These are not houses which are kept permanently standing, but are specially built on each occasion on which the nose-boring operation is going to be performed. A great swelling of the patients' noses develops, and this spreads more or less over their faces. The patients are confined in the special houses until the holes in their noses are large enough and the wounds are healed. During this confinement each patient has himself to do what is requisite to further enlarge the hole by the insertion into it from time to time of pieces of wood and by putting in rolled up leaves and pus.h.i.+ng pieces of wood inside these leaves. During all this period he is not allowed to come out of the house, at all events not so as to be seen, and his diet is confined to sweet potato, cooked in a certain way. The cooking for all the patients, men and women, is done by the woman nose-piercing operator, a.s.sisted by other women. The potatoes are wrapped up in leaves (usually banana), each potato being generally wrapped up separately in one or more leaves; and, when so wrapped up, they are cooked in red-hot ashes, and then taken to the houses where the patients are.

When the hole in any patient's nose has reached the requisite size, and the wound is healed, he inserts a large croton leaf [41] into the hole; he may then come out and return to his own house, retaining the croton leaf in his nose. He must next occupy himself in searching for a black non-poisonous snake about 12 or 18 inches long, which is commonly found in the gra.s.s. I cannot say what snake this is, but I am advised that it is probably _Tropidonotus mairii_. Its native name is _fal' ul' obe_, which means "germ of the ground." Until he finds this snake he must keep the croton leaf in his nose, and is still under the same restriction as to food, which is cooked in the same way and by the same persons as before. On finding the snake, he secures it alive, removes the croton leaf from the hole in his nose, and inserts into it the tail end of the living snake; then, holding the head of the snake in one of his hands, and the tail in the other, he draws the snake slowly through the hole, until its head is close to the hole. He then lets the head drop from his hand, and with a quick movement of the other hand draws it through the nose, and throws the snake, still living, away. [42] This completes the nose-piercing; but there still rests upon the patient the duty of going to the river, and there catching an eel, which he gives to the people who have been feeding him during his illness.

The nose-piercing is generally done at one of the big feasts; and, as these are rare in any one village, you usually find in the villages many fully-grown people whose noses have not been pierced; though as to this I may say that nose-piercing is more generally indulged in by chiefs and important people and their families than by the village rank and file. It commonly happens, however, that a good many people have to be done when the occasion arises. Each person to be operated upon has to provide a domestic pig for the big feast. I have been unable to discover the origin and meaning of the nose-piercing ceremony. [43]

Ear-piercing is done to both men and women, generally when quite young, say at seven or twelve years of age. Both the lower and the upper lobes are pierced, sometimes only one or the other, and sometimes both; but the lower lobe is the one more commonly pierced. They can do it themselves, or can get someone else to do it. There is no ceremony. The piercing is done with the thorn of a tree, and the hole is afterwards gradually widened by the insertion of small pieces of wood. They never make large holes, or enlarge them greatly afterwards, as the holes are only used for the hanging of pendants, and not for the insertion of discs. After the piercing the patient must, until the wound is healed, abstain from all food except sweet potato; but there is no restriction as to the way in which this food is to be cooked, or the person who is to cook it. There is as regards ear-piercing no difference between the case of chiefs' children and those of other people.

Body-staining is usual with both men and women, who do it for themselves, or get others to help them. There is no ceremony in connection with it. The colours generally adopted are red, greyish-yellow and black. The red stain is procured from an earth, which is obtained from the low countries; but they themselves also have an earth which is used, and produces a more bronzy red. The yellow stain is also got from an earth. All these coloured earths are worked into a paste with water, or with animal fat, if they can get it. I think they also get a red stain from the fruit of a species of Panda.n.u.s; but I am not quite clear as to this. The black stain is obtained from crushed vegetable ashes mixed with fat or water. The staining of the face is usually of a simple character. It may cover the whole face all in one colour or in different colours, and often one side of the face is stained one colour, and the other side another colour. They also make stripes and spots or either of them of any colour or colours on any part of the face. The red colour (I think especially that obtained from the Panda.n.u.s fruit) is also often applied in staining the whole body, this being especially done for dances and visiting; though a young dandy will often do it at other times. The black is the symbol of mourning, and will be referred to hereafter.

Hairdressing may be conveniently dealt with here. The Mafulu hairdressing is quite simple and rough, very different from the big, spreading, elaborately prepared and carefully combed mops of Mekeo. This is a factor which a traveller in this part of New Guinea may well bear in mind in connection with his impedimenta, as he has no difficulty in getting the Kuni and Mafulu people to carry packages on their heads, which the Mekeo folk are unwilling to do.

The modes in which the men dress their hair, so far as I was able to notice, may be roughly divided into the following categories:--(_a_) A simple crop of hair either cut quite close or allowed to grow fairly long, or anything between these two, but not dressed in any way, and probably uncombed, unkempt and untidy. This is the commonest form. (_b_) The same as (_a_), but with a band round the hair, separating the upper part of it from the lower, and giving the former a somewhat chignon-like appearance, (_c_) The hair done up all over the head in three-stranded plaits a few inches long, and about an eighth of an inch thick, having the appearance of short thick pieces of string, (_d_) The top of the head undressed, but the sides, and sometimes the back, of the head done up in plaits like (_c_). (_e_) A manufactured long shaped fringe of hair, human, but not the hair of the wearer (Plate 20, Fig. 3), is often worn over the forehead, just under the wearer's own hair, so as to form, as it were, a part of it, pieces of string being attached to the ends of the fringe and pa.s.sed round the back of the head, where they are tied. These fringes are made by tying a series of little bunches of hair close to one another along the double string, which forms the base of the fringe. Specimens examined by me were about 12 inches long and 1 1/4 inches wide (this width being the length of the bunches of hair), and contained about twenty bunches. It is usual to have two or three of these strings of bunches of hair tied together at the ends, thus making one broad fringe. These fringes are often worn in connection with styles (_c_) and (_d_) of hairdressing; but I never noticed them in a.s.sociation with (_a_) and (_b_).

I was told that men who have become bald sometimes wear complete artificial wigs, though I never saw an example of this.

The hairdressing of the women seemed to be similar to that of the men, except that I never saw the chignon-producing band, that they do not wear fringes, and that the entire or partial plaiting of the hair is more frequently adopted by them than it is by the men. I do not know whether the women ever indulge in entire wigs.

Method (_a_) is seen in many of the plates. Method (_b_) is ill.u.s.trated, though not very well, in Plate 9 (the fourth and fifth man from the left) and in Plate 21 (the young man to the left, behind). Method (_c_) is adopted by four of the women in the frontispiece, by some of the women in Plate 16, by the woman in Plate 17, and by the little girl in Plates 22 and 23. Method (_d_) is well ill.u.s.trated by the second woman from the right in the frontispiece.

The cutting of the hair of both men and women is effected with sharp pieces of stone of the sort used for making adze blades, or with sharp pieces of bamboo or sh.e.l.l.

Infant deformation is not practised in any form by the Mafulu people; nor do they circ.u.mcise their children.

Ornaments.

The string-like plaits in which men and women arrange their hair, and especially those of the women, are often decorated with ornaments. Small cowrie and other sh.e.l.ls, or native or European beads, or both, are strung by women on to these plaits, sometimes in a line along all or the greater part of the length of the plait, sometimes as a pendant at the end of it, and sometimes in both ways; and any other small ornamental object may be added. Dogs' teeth are also used by both men and women in the same way; but these are, I think, more commonly strung in line along the plaits, rather than suspended at the ends of them. Both men and women wear suspended at the ends of these plaits wild betel-nut fruit, looking like elongated acorns; and men, but not women, wear in the same way small pieces of cane, an inch or two long, into which the ends of the plaits are inserted. All these forms of decoration may be found a.s.sociated together. They are in the case of men usually confined to the plaits at the sides, being also often attached to the side ends of the artificial fringes; but they are sometimes used for the back of the head also. The women often wear them also at the top of the head, and in wearing them at the sides sometimes have them hanging in long strings reaching to the shoulders.

Plate 24 (Figs. 1, 2, 5, and 6) and Plate 25 (Figs. 2 and 4) are ornamented plaits cut off the heads of women. The ornaments shown include beads, sh.e.l.ls, discs made out of sh.e.l.ls, dogs' teeth and betel-nut fruit. Plate 24 (Figs. 3 and 4) are ornamented plaits cut off the heads of men, one of them having a cane pendant, and the other a pendant of betel-nut.

The appearance of these things, as worn, is seen in Plates 16, 26, 27, 28 and 29 (the habit of wearing a single dog-tooth at each side of the head, as shown by 27, being a common one, and 28 showing the equally common habit of wearing a couple of betel-nuts at each side). Their appearance, when worn in abundance for a festal dance, is excellently shown in the frontispiece and in Plate 17; and the little girl in Plates 22 and 23, though too young to be a dancer, is decorated for an occasion.

Pigs' tails are a common head decoration for women, and are also worn, though not so frequently, by men. These tails are covered with the natural hair of the tail, and are brown-coloured. They are suspended by strings pa.s.sing round the crown of the head or from the plaits at the sides of the head. They are generally only about 6 inches long; but sometimes the ornaments into which they are made are much longer, and I have seen them worn by women hanging down as far as the level of the breast. These pigtails are sometimes worn hanging in cl.u.s.ters of several tails. They are also often, in the case of women, decorated with sh.e.l.ls, beads, dogs' teeth, etc., which are attached like ta.s.sels to their upper ends. [44]

Plate 30, Fig. 3 shows a pigtail ornament for hanging over the head, with the tails suspended on both sides and strings of beads and dogs'

teeth hanging from the upper ends of the tails. The ornament is worn by the middle man in Plate 9 and by the little girl figured in Plates 22 and 23, and it is seen more extensively worn by women decorated for dancing in the frontispiece and in Plate 17, and by the girl in Plate 71.

A peculiar and less usual sort of head ornament (Plate 30, Fig. 4), worn by both men and women, is a cl.u.s.ter of about a dozen or less of bark cloth strings, about 1 1/2 feet long, fastened together at the top, and there suspended by a string tied round the top of the head, so as to hang down like the lashes of a several-thonged whip over the back. The individual strings of the cl.u.s.ter are quite thin, but they are decorated with the yellow and brown straw-like material above referred to in connection with abdominal belt No. 6 (being prepared from the same plant, apparently Dendrobium, and in the same way), the material being twisted in a close spiral round the strings, and making them look, when seen from a short distance off, like strings of very small yellow and brown beads, irregularly arranged in varying lengths of the two colours, shading off gradually from one to the other. Even when so bound round, these strings are only about 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch thick.

The Mafulu comb (Plate 30, Fig. 2) differs in construction from the wooden combs, all made in one piece, which are commonly used in Mekeo. It is made of four, five, or six thin pieces of wood, which are left blunt at one end, but are sharpened to points at the other. These are bound together with straw-like work, sometimes beautifully done, the binding being nearly always near to the blunt ends, though it is sometimes almost in the middle. [45] The combs so made are flat, with the blunt ends converging and generally fastened together, and the long sharp ends, which are the ends to be inserted into the hair, spreading outwards. The bound-up blunt ends are in fact a point, or, say, half an inch or less (occasionally more) across. The spread of the sharp ends varies from 1 to 2 inches or more. The straw-like binding may be light or dark brown, or partly one and partly the other. Sometimes only the two outside p.r.o.ngs meet together at the blunt end, and the inner p.r.o.ngs do not extend much, or at all, beyond the upper edge of the straw-like work binding. The fastening together of the blunt converging tips is done sometimes with native thread just at the tips, and sometimes with a little straw work rather further down; occasionally it is missing altogether. The comb figured is not so converging at the blunt ends or so spreading at the sharp ends as is usual, and its blunt ends are not bound together. These combs are only worn by men; they are commonly worn in front, projecting forwards over the forehead, as is done in Mekeo; but they are also worn at the back of the head, projecting sideways to either right or left. A feather (generally a white c.o.c.katoo feather), or sometimes two feathers, are often inserted into the straw-like work of the comb, so as to stand up vertically when the comb is worn, and there wave, or rather wag, backwards and forwards in the wind. I could not learn any significance in these feathers, such as applies to many of the upright head feathers worn by the young men of Mekeo. The comb is worn by several of the men figured in Plate 9, one of them wearing it in front and the others having it standing out sideways at the back.

The almost universal type of earring (Plate 20, Fig. 1), varying from 2 to 3 inches in circ.u.mference, is made out of the tail of the cuscus. The ring is made by removing the hair from the animal's tail, drying the tail, and fastening the pointed end into or on to the blunt cut-off stump end, tying them firmly together. The ring is then bound closely round with the yellow and brown material (Dendrobium) of belt No. 6; but a s.p.a.ce of 1 or 2 inches is generally left uncovered at the part where the two ends of the tail are fastened together. The simplest form is a single earring, which pa.s.ses through the hole in the ear; but I have seen two rings hanging to the ear; and frequently a second ring is hung on to the first, and often a third to the second, and sometimes a fourth to the third; or perhaps, instead of the fourth ring, there may be two rings hanging to the second one. In fact, there are varieties of ways in which the fancy of the wearer and the number of rings he possesses will cause him to wear them. They are worn by both men and women. [46] They may be seen in several plates, but unfortunately are not very clear. The most distinct are, I think, those worn by the second woman from the left in Plate 26 and the woman on the left in Plate 28. The second woman from the left in the frontispiece has two of them hanging from her right ear.

Pigs' tails, similar to those worn from the hair, are also worn by both men and women, especially the latter, suspended from the ears; and here again they vary much in length, and are often decorated with ta.s.sel-like hanging ornaments of sh.e.l.ls, beads, etc.

Forehead ornaments (Plate 30, Fig 5) are made by men and worn by them at dances. This ornament is a band, very slightly curved, which is worn across the forehead, just under and surrounding the basis of the dancing feathers. It is generally about 16 inches long and between 4 and 5 inches broad in the middle, from which it narrows somewhat towards the ends. Its manufacture consists of a ground basis of the material of belt No. 5, into which are interplaited in geometric patterns the two black and yellow and brown materials which are used for belt No. 6. It is fixed on to the forehead by means of strings attached to its two ends, and pa.s.sing round, and tied at the back of, the head.

Nose ornaments. These are straight pencil-shaped pieces of sh.e.l.l, generally about 6 inches long, which are pa.s.sed through the hole in the septum of the nose. They are only worn at dances and on special occasions; but the people from time to time insert bits of wood or cane or bone or some other thing into the hole for the purpose of keeping it open. There are temporary pegs in the noses of the fifth man to the left in Plate 9 and the man in Plate 10. The nose ornament is worn by the woman to the extreme right in the frontispiece.

Necklaces and straight pendants, suspended from the neck and hanging over the chest, are common, though they are not usually worn in anything approaching the profusion seen in Mekeo and on the coast. These are made chiefly of sh.e.l.ls of various sorts (cut or whole), dogs' teeth and beads, as in Mekeo. The sh.e.l.ls include the cowries and the small closely packed overlapping cut sh.e.l.ls so generally used in Mekeo for necklaces, and the flat disc-like sh.e.l.l sections, which are here, as in Mekeo, specially used for straight hanging pendants; also those lovely large crescent-shaped discs of pearl sh.e.l.l, which are well known to New Guinea travellers. The sh.e.l.ls are, of course, all obtained directly or indirectly from the coast; in fact, these are some of the chief articles for which the mountain people exchange their stone implements and special mountain feathers, so the similarity in the ornaments is to be expected; but it is only within a quite recent time that the pearl crescents have found their way to Mafulu. I do not propose to describe at length the various forms of sh.e.l.l ornament, as they are very similar to, and indeed I think practically the same as, those of Mekeo. Some of the necklaces are figured in Plates 31, 32 and 33, and they are worn by many of the people figured in other plates, especially the frontispiece and Plate 17. Straight pendant ornaments are seen in the frontispiece and in Plates 6, 17, 26 and others. The crescent-shaped pearl ornaments are seen in the frontispiece and in Plates 6, 7, 16, 28 and others, a very large one being worn by the little girl in Plate 71.

There is, however, one sh.e.l.l necklace which is peculiar to the mountains, and, I think, to Mafulu (I do not know whether the Kuni people also wear it), where it is worn as an emblem of mourning by persons who are relatives of the deceased, but who are not sufficiently closely related to him to stain themselves with black during the period of mourning. This necklace is made of white cowrie sh.e.l.ls varying in size from half an inch to an inch long, each of which has its convex side ground away, so as to show on one side the untouched mouth of the sh.e.l.l and on the other an open cavity. The sh.e.l.ls are strung, sometimes closely and sometimes loosely, on to a double band of thin cord. Specimens of this type of necklace measured by me varied in length from 36 inches (with 97 sh.e.l.ls) to 20 inches (with 38 sh.e.l.ls). It is worn until the period of mourning is formally terminated. The middle necklace in Plate 33 is a mourning sh.e.l.l necklace, and it is seen on the neck of the woman to the right in Plate 29.

Pigs' tail ornaments similar to those already described are also worn suspended by neck-bands over the chest.

Armlets and wrist-bands are worn by both men and women, and more or less by children, including quite young ones, at the higher end of the upper arm and just above the wrist. They are made by men only, and vary in width from half an inch to 5 or 6 inches, the wider ones being generally worn on the upper arm. There are several common forms of these: (1) The more usual form (Plate 34, Fig. 4) is made of the thin and finely plaited stone-grey material described in abdominal belt No. 5, and is made in the same way, subject to the difference that the plaiting is more closely done. Measured specimens of this armlet varied in width from 1 to 2 1/4 inches, and displayed different varieties of diagonal twill st.i.tch. (2) Another common form (Plate 34, Fig. 3) is made of the coa.r.s.er-plaited black and yellow and brown materials described concerning No. 6 belt, and is made in the same way. Specimens of this armlet varied in width from 1 to 5 inches. (3) There is another form which in fineness of material and plait is between Nos. 1 and 2. I was told that this is made out of another creeping plant, and is left in its own natural unstained colour, which, however, in this case is a dull brown red. (4) Another form (Plate 34, Fig. 2) is made of the coa.r.s.e dull red-brown and stone-yellow materials described with reference to belt No. 2, and is made in the same way. A specimen of this armlet was 2 1/4 inches wide. (5) Another form (Plate 34, Fig. 1) is in make something like No. 4, but the two materials used are the stone-yellow material of belt No. 2 and the black material of belt No. 6, and the plaiting materials are much finer in thickness than are those of armlet No. 4. Specimens of this armlet varied in width from 3/4 to 1 1/4 inches. (6) The beautiful large cut single-sh.e.l.l wrist ornament, commonly worn on the coast and plains, whence the Mafulu people procure it. Armlets will be seen worn by many of the people figured in the plates.

There is no practice of putting armlets on young folk, and retaining them in after life, so as to tighten round and contract the arm.

Leg-bands (Plate 25, Fig. 1) and anklets are worn by both men and women, and also by children, just below the knee and above the ankle.

There is a form of plaited leg-band somewhat similar in make to armlet No. 5, and between half-an-inch and an inch in width, though the colour of this leg-band is a dull brown. But the usual form of leg-band and anklet is made by women only out of thread fibre by a process of manufacture quite distinct from the stiff plait work adopted for some of the belts and for the armlets. They make their thread out of fine vegetable fibre as they proceed with the manufacture of the band, rolling the individual fibres with their hands upon their thighs, and then rolling these fibres into two-strand threads, and from time to time in this way making more thread, which is worked into the open ends of the then working thread as it is required--all this being done in the usual native method.

I had an opportunity of watching a woman making a leg-band, and I think the process is worth describing. She first made a thread 5 or 6 feet long by the method above referred to, the thread being a two-strand one, made out of small lengths about 5 or 6 inches long of the original fibre, rolled together and added to from time to time until the full length of 5 or 6 feet of thread had been made. The thread was of the thickness of very coa.r.s.e European thread or exceedingly fine string. She next wound the thread into a triple loop of the size of the proposed leg-band. This triple loop was to be the base upon which she was to make the leg-band, of which it would form the first line and upper edge. It was only about 11 inches in circ.u.mference, and thus left two ends, one of which (I will call it "the working thread") was a long one, and the other of which (I will call it "the inside thread") was a short one. Both these threads hung down together from the same point (which I will call "the starting point"). She then, commencing at the starting point, worked the working thread round the triple base by a series of interlacing loops in the form shown (very greatly magnified) in Fig. 1; but the loops were drawn quite tight, and not left loose, as, for the purpose of ill.u.s.tration, I have had to make them in the figure. This process was carried round the base until she had again reached the starting point, at which stage the base, with its tightly drawn loop work all around it, was firm and strong, and there were still the two ends of thread hanging from the starting point. Here and at subsequent stages of the work she added to the lengths of these two ends from time to time in the way above described when they needed it, and the two ends of thread were therefore always present. Then began the making of the second line. This was commenced at the starting point, from which the two ends of thread hung, and was effected by a series of loops made with the working thread in the way already described, except that these loops, instead of pa.s.sing round the whole of the base line, pa.s.sed through holes which she bored with a thorn, as she went on, in the extreme bottom edge of that line, and also that, in making this second line, she pa.s.sed the inside thread through each loop before she drew the latter tight; so that the second line was itself composed of a single internal thread, around which the loops were drawn. The second line was continued in this way until she again reached the starting point (but, of course, one line lower down), from which the two ends of thread hung down as before. The third and following lines were made by a process identical with that of the second one, the holes for each line being p.r.i.c.ked through the bottom of that above it. I did not see the completion of the band, but I may say that the final line is similar to the second and subsequent ones, and is not a triple-threaded line like the first one. It was amazing to see this woman doing her work. She was an old woman, but she did the whole of the work with her fingers, and she must have had wonderful eyesight and steadiness of hand, as she made the minute scarcely visible p.r.i.c.k holes, and pa.s.sed the end of her working thread through them, with the utmost apparent ease and quickness.

The band thus produced is of very small, close, fine work, and is quite soft, flexible and elastic, like European canvas, instead of being stiff and hard, like the plaited belts and armlets. The band is generally about an inch (more or less) in width. It is not dyed or coloured in any way, but is often decorated with beads, which are worked into the fabric in one or more horizontal lines, but as a rule, I think, only at irregular intervals, and not in continuous lines. These bands and anklets are seen in many of the plates. In Plates 10, 11 and 12 the bead decorations are seen.

Dancing ap.r.o.ns are made out of bark cloth by both men and women, but coloured by men only. The ap.r.o.n, which is worn at dances by women only, is about 6 to 12 inches wide. It is worn, as shown in Plate 35, in front of the body, being pa.s.sed over the abdominal belt or a cord so as to hang over it in two folds, one behind the other; and the front fold, which is the part which shows (the back fold being more or less concealed), and is generally 18 inches to 2 feet in length, has at its base a fringe made by cutting the end of the cloth up into strips, equal or unequal in width, the number of which may be only six or less, or may be fifteen or twenty. The front fold is often wholly or partly stained, the colour of the stain being usually yellow, and is always more or less covered with a decorative design, the colours of which are usually black and red. The back fold is generally stained yellow, but never has any design upon it. The fringe is also usually stained yellow, and is without design, except occasionally perhaps a few horizontal lines of colour.

I may say here, as regards these colours, that, so far as my observation went, the colours of the decorative patterns were always black and red, and the general staining was always yellow; and indeed the last-mentioned colour does not show up against the natural colour of the cloth sufficiently clearly to adapt it for actual design work. I am not, however, prepared to say that this allocation of the colours is in fact an invariable one; and, as I know that red is used for general staining of perineal bands and dancing ribbons, it is possible that it, as well as yellow, is used for ap.r.o.ns.

Numerous variations of design are to be found in these garments; and indeed I may say that it is in these and in the feather head decorations that the Mafulu people mainly indulge such artistic powers as they possess.

Plates 36 to 43 are examples of decoration of the front folds of these dancing ap.r.o.ns [47]; and I give the following particulars concerning them, first stating that, subject to what may appear in my particulars, the darker lines and spots represent black ones in the ap.r.o.n, and the lighter ones represent red ones.

Plate.