Their figures, except in young girls, are generally wasted, yet one occasionally meets with a woman of fine and symmetrical build. The dress is restricted to a small leaf, attached to a thin loin-string. Both men and women generally wear at the back a bundle of leaves; women and boys have strongly scented herbs, the men coloured croton, the shade depending on the caste of the wearer. The highest castes wear the darkest, nearly black, varieties. These croton bushes are planted along the sides of the gamals, so as to furnish the men's ornaments; and they lend the sombre places some brightness and colour.
Half for ornament and half for purposes of healing are the large scars which may frequently be seen on the shoulders or breasts of the natives. The cuts are supposed to cure internal pains; the scabs are frequently scratched off, until the scar is large and high, and may be considered ornamental. Apropos of this medical detail I may mention another remedy, for rheumatism: with a tiny bow and arrow a great number of small cuts are shot into the skin of the part affected; the scars from these wounds form a network of fine, hardly noticeable designs on the skin.
The life and cult of the natives are as simple as their dress. The houses are scattered and hidden in the bush, grouped vaguely around the gamal, which stands alone on a bare square. No statues stand there, nor tall, upright drums; only a few small drums lie in a puddle around the gamal.
The dwelling-houses are simply gable-roofs, always without side-walls and often without any walls at all. They are divided into a pig-stable and a living-room, unless the owners prefer to have their pigs living in the same space with themselves.
A few flat wooden dishes are the only implements the native does not find ready-made in nature. Cooking is done with heated stones heaped around the food, which has been previously wrapped up in banana leaves. Lime-stones naturally cannot be used for that purpose, and volcanic stones have often to be brought from quite a distance, so that these cooking-stones are treated with some care. In place of knives the natives use shells or inland bamboo-splinters, but both are rapidly being replaced by European knives.