All Are Remarkably Fond Of Their Cattle, And Spend Much Time
In Ornamenting And Adorning Them.
Some are branded all over with a hot knife,
so as to cause a permanent discoloration of the hair,
in lines like the bands on the hide of a zebra.
Pieces of skin
two or three inches long and broad are detached, and allowed to heal
in a dependent position around the head - a strange style of ornament;
indeed, it is difficult to conceive in what their notion of beauty consists.
The women have somewhat the same ideas with ourselves of what
constitutes comeliness. They came frequently and asked for the looking-glass;
and the remarks they made - while I was engaged in reading,
and apparently not attending to them - on first seeing themselves therein,
were amusingly ridiculous. "Is that me?" "What a big mouth I have!"
"My ears are as big as pumpkin-leaves." "I have no chin at all."
Or, "I would have been pretty, but am spoiled by these high cheek-bones."
"See how my head shoots up in the middle!" laughing vociferously all the time
at their own jokes. They readily perceive any defect in each other,
and give nicknames accordingly. One man came alone to have
a quiet gaze at his own features once, when he thought I was asleep;
after twisting his mouth about in various directions, he remarked to himself,
"People say I am ugly, and how very ugly I am indeed!"
The Makololo use all the skins of their oxen for making either
mantles or shields.
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