The next chapter will be devoted to an account of some of the most common means by which the sexes endeavour, or formerly endeavoured, to make themselves attractive to one another, and to stimulate each other’s passions. Then we shall see how far woman has the liberty of disposing of her own hand, and, at the same time, note cases in which the man also, with regard to his marriage, has to submit to some other’s will.
The desire for self-decoration, although a specifically human quality, is exceedingly old. There are peoples destitute of almost everything which we regard as necessaries of life, but there is no people so rude as not to take pleasure in ornaments. The ancient barbarians who inhabited the south of Europe at the same time as the reindeer and the mammoth, brought to their caves brilliant and ornamental objects.[965] The women of the utterly wretched Veddahs in Ceylon decorate themselves with necklaces of brass beads, and bangles cut from the chank shell.[966] The Fuegians “are content to be naked,” but “ambitious to be fine.”[967] The Australians, without taking the slightest pride in their appearance, so far as neatness or cleanliness is concerned, are yet very vain of their own rude decorations.[968] And of the rude Tasmanians, Cook tells us that they had no wish to obtain useful articles, but were eager to secure anything ornamental.
“Great as is the vanity of the civilized,” says Mr. Spencer, “it is exceeded by that of the uncivilized.”[969] The predilection of savages for ornaments has been sufficiently shown by travellers in almost every part of the world. Feathers and beads of different colours, flowers, rings, anklets, and bracelets, are common embellishments. A fully-equipped Santal belle, for instance, carries two anklets, and perhaps twelve bracelets, and a necklace weighing a pound, the total weight of ornaments on her person amounting to thirty-four pounds of bell metal,—“a greater weight,” says Captain Sherwill, “than one of our drawing-room belles could well lift.”[970] Besides this, the body is transformed in various ways. The lips, the sides of the nose, and the lobes of the ear are especially ill-treated. Hardly any woman in Eastern Central Africa is without a lip-ring; they say it makes them look pretty, and “the bigger the ring, the more they value themselves!”[971] The Shulis bore a hole in the underlip and insert in it a piece of crystal three or four inches long, which sways about as they speak;[972] and similar customs are common among other African peoples,[973] as also in some parts of North and South America.[974] The Papuans perforate the septum of the nose and insert in the hole sticks, claws of birds, &c.[975] The most common practice is to pierce, enlarge, or somehow mutilate the ear-lobes. Certain North American Indians,[976] the Arecunas and Botocudos of South America,[977] and the East African Wa-taïta[978] pull them down almost to the shoulders. Among the Easter Islanders, says Beechey, “the lobe, deprived of its ear-ring, hangs dangling against the neck, and has a very disagreeable appearance, particularly when wet. It is sometimes so long as to be greatly in the way; to obviate which, they pass the lobe over the upper part of the ear, or more rarely, fasten one lobe to the other, at the back of the head.”[979]