Identifier: uncivilizedraces00wood (find matches)
Title: The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world : being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics
Year: 1878 (1870s)
Authors: Wood, J. G. (John George), 1827-1889
Subjects: Ethnology Manners and customs Savages
Publisher: Hartford : J. B. Burr and company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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As to the women, their dress very much resembles that of the Hottentot. They wear a piece of skin wrapped around their heads, and the usual apron, made of leather cut into narrow thongs. They also have the kaross, which is almost exactly like that of the men. These are the necessities of dress, but the female sex among this curious race are equally fond of finery with their more civilized sisters. Having but little scope for ornament in the apron and kaross, they place the greater part of their decoration on the head, and ornament their hair and countenances in the most extraordinary way. Water, as has been already observed, never touches their faces, which are highly polished with grease, so that they shine in the sunbeams with a lustre that is literally dazzling. To their hair they suspend various small ornaments, like those which have been mentioned as forming part of the men's dress. Among these ornaments, the money-cowrie is often seen, and is much valued, because this shell does not belong to the coast, but is used as money, and is thus passed over a very great portion of Southern Africa as a sort of currency.
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(4.) BOSJESMAN QUIVER AND ARROWS. (See pages 257, 261.) (247) (5.) FRONTLET. (See pages 226, 248) FROM INFANCY TO AGE. 249 A curious and very inconvenient ornament is mentioned by Burchell, and the reader will see that it bears some resemblance to the frontlet which is drawn on page 247. The girl who was wearing it had evidently a great idea of her own attractions, and indeed, according to the writer, she had some grounds for vanity. She had increased the power of her charms by rubbing her whole dress and person thickly with grease, while her arms and legs were so loaded with leather rings, that she evidently had an admirer who was a successful hunter, as in no other way could she obtain these coveted decorations. Her hair was clotted with red ochre, and glittering with sibilo, while her whole person was perfumed with buchu. Her chief ornament, however, was a frontlet composed of three oval pieces of ivory, about as large as sparrows eggs, which were suspended from her head in such away that one fell on her nose, the other two on her cheeks. As she spoke, she coquettishly moved her head from side to side, so as to make these glittering ornaments swing about in a manner which she considered very fascinating. However, as the writer quaintly observes, "her vanity and affectation, great as they were, did not, as one may sometimes observe in both sexes in other countries, elate her, or produce any alteration in the tone of her voice, for the astonishing quantity of meat which she swallowed down, and the readiness with which she called out to her attendants for more, showed her to be resolved that no squeamishness should interfere on this occasion."

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