Many Of The Garments For Holiday Occasions Are Exceedingly
Handsome, Being Decorated With "Geometrical" Patterns, In Which The
"Greek Fret" Takes Part, In Coarse Blue Cotton, Braided Most
Dexterously With Scarlet And White Thread.
Some of the handsomest
take half a year to make.
The masculine dress is completed by an
apron of oblong shape decorated in the same elaborate manner.
These handsome savages, with their powerful physique, look
remarkably well in their best clothes. I have not seen a boy or
girl above nine who is not thoroughly clothed. The "jewels" of the
women are large, hoop earrings of silver or pewter, with
attachments of a classical pattern, and silver neck ornaments, and
a few have brass bracelets soldered upon their arms. The women
have a perfect passion for every hue of red, and I have made
friends with them by dividing among them a large turkey-red silk
handkerchief, strips of which are already being utilised for the
ornamenting of coats.
The houses in the five villages up here are very good. So they are
at Horobets, but at Shiraoi, where the aborigines suffer from the
close proximity of several grog shops, they are inferior. They
differ in many ways from any that I have before seen, approaching
most nearly to the grass houses of the natives of Hawaii. Custom
does not appear to permit either of variety or innovations; in all
the style is the same, and the difference consists in the size and
plenishings. The dwellings seem ill-fitted for a rigorous climate,
but the same thing may be said of those of the Japanese.
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