|
Bullseye
|
* Sir S. Baker (ibid., vol. i., p. 210) speaking of the natives of
central Africa says, "Every tribe has a distinct and unchanging
fashion for dressing the hair." See Agassiz (Journey in Brazil,
1868, p. 318) on invariability of the tattooing of Amazonian Indians.
*(2) Rev. R. Taylor, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, 1855, p. 152.
*(3) Mantegazza, Viaggi e Studi, p. 542.
Having made these preliminary remarks on the admiration felt by
savages for various ornaments, and for deformities most unsightly in
our eyes, let us see how far the men are attracted by the appearance
of their women, and what are their ideas of beauty. I have heard it
maintained that savages are quite indifferent about the beauty of
their women, valuing them solely as slaves; it may therefore be well
to observe that this conclusion does not at all agree with the care
which the women take in ornamenting themselves, or with their
vanity. Burchell* gives an amusing account of a bush-woman who used as
much grease, red ochre, and shining powder "as would have ruined any
but a very rich husband." She displayed also "much vanity and too
evident a consciousness of her superiority." Mr. Winwood Reade informs
me that the negroes of the west coast often discuss the beauty of
their women. Some competent observers have attributed the fearfully
common practice of infanticide partly to the desire felt by the
women to retain their good looks.*(2) In several regions the women
wear charms and use love-philters to gain the affections of the men;
and Mr. Brown enumerates four plants used for this purpose by the
women of north-western America.*(3)
* Travels in South Africa, 1824, vol. i.. p. 414.
*(2) See, for references, Gerland, Uber das Aussterben der
Naturvolker, 1868, ss. 51, 53, 55; also Azara, Voyages, &c., tom. ii.,
p. 116.
*(3) On the vegetable productions used by the north-western American
Indians, see Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. x.
Hearne,* an excellent observer, who lived many years with the
American Indians, says, in speaking of the women, "Ask a northern
Indian what is beauty, and he will answer, a broad flat face, small
eyes, high cheek-bones, three or four broad black lines across each
cheek, a low forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook nose, a tawny
hide, and breasts hanging down to the belt." Pallas, who visited the
northern parts of the Chinese empire, says, "those women are preferred
who have the Mandschu form; that is to say, a broad face, high
cheek-bones, very broad noses, and enormous ears";*(2) and Vogt
remarks that the obliquity of the eye, which is proper to the
Chinese and Japanese, is exaggerated in their pictures for the
purpose, as it "seems, of exhibiting its beauty, as contrasted with
the eye of the red-haired barbarians." It is well known, as Huc
repeatedly remarks, that the Chinese of the interior think Europeans
hideous, with their white skins and prominent noses. The nose is far
from being too prominent, according to our ideas, in the natives of
Ceylon; yet "the Chinese in the seventh century, accustomed to the
flat features of the Mongol races, were surprised at the prominent
noses of the Cingalese; and Thsang described them as having 'the
beak of a bird, with the body of a man.'"
* A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort, 8vo. ed., 1796, p. 89.
*(2) Quoted by Prichard, Physical History of Mankind, 3rd ed.,
vol. iv., 1844, p. 519; Vogt, Lectures on Man, Eng. translat., p. 129.
On the opinion of the Chinese on the Cingalese, E. Tennent, Ceylon,
1859, vol. ii., p. 107.
Finlayson, after minutely describing the people of Cochin China,
says that their rounded heads and faces are their chief
characteristics; and, he adds, "the roundness of the whole countenance
is more striking in the women, who are reckoned beautiful in
proportion as they display this form of face." The Siamese have
small noses with divergent nostrils, a wide mouth, rather thick
lips, a remarkably large face, with very high and broad cheek-bones.
It is, therefore, not wonderful that "beauty, according to our notion,
is a stranger to them. Yet they consider their own females to be
much more beautiful than those of Europe."*
* Prichard, as taken from Crawfurd and Finlayson, Phys. Hist. of
Mankind, vol. iv., pp. 534, 535.
It is well known that with many Hottentot women the posterior part
of the body projects in a wonderful manner; they are steatopygous; and
Sir Andrew Smith is certain that this peculiarity is greatly admired
by the men.* He once saw a woman who was considered a beauty, and
she was so immensely developed behind, that when seated on level
ground she could not rise, and had to push herself along until she
came to a slope. Some of the women in various negro tribes have the
same peculiarity; and, according to Burton, the Somal men are said
to choose their wives by ranging them in a line, and by picking her
out who projects farthest a tergo. Nothing can be more hateful to a
negro than the opposite form."*(2)
* Idem illustrissimus viator dixit mihi praecinctorium vel tabulam
foeminae, quod nobis teterrimum est, quondam permagno aestimari ab
hominibus in hac gente. Nunc res mutata est, et censent talem
conformationem minime optandam esse.
*(2) The Anthropological Review, November, 1864, p. 237. For
additional references, see Waitz, Introduction to Anthropology, Eng.
translat., 1863, vol. i., p. 105.
With respect to colour, the negroes rallied Mungo Park on the
whiteness of his skin and the prominence of his nose, both of which
they considered as "unsightly and unnatural conformations." He in
return praised the glossy jet of their skins and the lovely depression
of their noses; this they said was "honeymouth," nevertheless they
gave him food. The African Moors, also, "knitted their brows and
seemed to shudder" at the whiteness of his skin. On the eastern coast,
the negro boys when they saw Burton, cried out, "Look at the white
man; does he not look like a white ape?" On the western coast, as
Mr. Winwood Reade informs me, the negroes admire a very black skin
more than one of a lighter tint. But their horror of whiteness may
be attributed, according to this same traveller, partly to the
belief held by most negroes that demons and spirits are white, and
partly to their thinking it a sign of ill-health.
|
