The Expression Of The Savage Is Peculiar, For He Pulls Out
All The Hair On His Face, Even The Eyelashes And Eyebrows, And Seems
To Think The Omission Of That Act Would Be A Terrible Breach Of
Cleanliness.
These same individuals will, however, frequently be seen
with their whole body so coated with dirt that it could easily be
scraped off with a knife in cakes, as the housewife would scrape a
burnt loaf!
The first use to which the women put the little round tin
looking-glasses, which I used for barter, was to admire their pretty
(?) faces; but the men, with a sober look, would search for the
detested hair on lip or chin. That I was so lost to decency as to
suffer a moustache to cover my lip was to them a constant puzzle and
wonder, for in every other respect the universal opinion was that I
was a civilized kind of "thing." I write thing advisedly, for the
white man is to them an inferior creation - not a person.
In place of a beard or moustache, the inhabitant of the Chaco prefers
to paint his face, and sometimes he makes quite an artistic design.
These wild inhabitants of Central South America generally wear a skin
around the loins, or a string of ostrich feathers. Some tribes, as,
for example, the Chamacocos, dispense with either. The height of
fashion is to wear strings of tigers' teeth, deer's hoofs, birds'
bills, etc., around the neck. Strings of feathers or wool are twisted
around ankles and wrists, while the thickly matted hair is adorned
with plumes, standing upright.
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