Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/153

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 125 in front is ashy or sandy, and the rest black, a sharply defined separa- tion dividing the two colours. Not a few are so ingeniously grotesque, as to appear as if done purposely to excite laughter. One has a large knot of fiery hair on his crown, all the rest of the head being bald. Another has the most of his hair cut away, leaving three or four rows of small clusters, as if his head were planted with small paint-brushes. A third has his head bare, except where a large patch projects over each temple. One, two, or three cords of twisted hair often fall from the right temple, a foot or eighteen inches long. Some men wear a number of these braids so as to form a curtain at the back of the neck, reaching from one ear to the other. A mode that requires great care, has the hair wrought into distinct locks, radiating from the head. Each lock is a perfect cone, about seven inches long, having the base outwards ; so that the surface of the hair is marked out into a great number of small circles, the ends being turned in, in each lock, towards the centre of the cone. In another kindred style, the locks are pyramidal, the sides and angles of each being as regular as though formed of wood. All round the head, they look like square black blocks, the upper tier projecting hori- zontally from the crown, and a flat space being left at the top of the head. When the hair, however, is not more than four inches long, this flat does not exist, lut the surface consists of a regular succession of squares or circles. The violent motions of the dance do not disturb these elaborate preparations, but great care is taken to preserve them from the effects of the dew or rain. Married women often wear their hair in the same style as the men, but not projecting to quite the same extent. A large woollen mop, of a reddish hue, falling over the eyes, will represent the hair as worn by the younger women. I have often girted men's heads which were three feet ten inches, and one nearly five feet, in circumference. A coating of jet-black powder is considered superlatively ornamental ; but its use is forbidden to the women, who, however, in common with the men, paint themselves with vermilion, applied in spots, stripes, and patches. White and pink armlets, and others made of a black wiry root or white cowries, ivory and shell finger-rings, knee and ankle bands with a rose-shaped knot, are much worn, ivory, tortoiseshell, dogs' teeth, bats' jaws, snake vertebrae, native beads ground out of shells, and foreign beads of glass, are formed into necklaces, the latter being generally braided into neat bands. Breast ornaments are, pearl-shells as large as a dessert-plate, plain or edged with ivory, orange and white cowries, and crescents or circles formed by a boar's tusk. Chiefs and priests sometimes wear