Peculiar arrangements of the hair also have misled unwary observers into fancying that they were made for beauty’s sake and to attract the opposite sex, when in reality they were tribal marks or had other utilitarian purposes, serving as elements in a language of signs, etc.  Frazer, e.g., notes (27) that the turtle clan of the Omaha Indians cuts off all the hair from a boy’s head except six locks which hang down in imitation of the legs, head, and tail of a turtle; while the Buffalo clan arranges two locks of hair in imitation of horns.  “Nearly all the Indian tribes,” writes Mallery (419), “have peculiarities of the arrangement of the hair and of some article of apparel or accoutrement by which they can always be distinguished.”  Heriot relates (294) that among the Indians

“the fashion of trimming the hair varies in a great degree, and an enemy may by this means be discovered at a considerable distance.”  “The Pueblos generally, when accurate and particular in delineation [pictographs], designate the women of that tribe by a huge coil of hair over either ear.  This custom prevails also among the Coyotero Apaches, the woman wearing the hair in coil to denote a virgin or an unmarried person, while the coil is absent in the case of a married woman.”

By the Mokis, maidenhood is indicated by wearing the hair as a disk on each side of the head. (Mallery, 231-32.) Similar usages on other continents might be cited.

Besides these arbitrary modifications of the skull and the teeth, and the divers arrangements of the hair, there are various other ways in which the lower races indicate tribal connection, rank, or other conditions.  Writing about negroes Burton says (Abeok., I., 106), that lines, welts, and all sorts of skin patterns are used, partly for superstitious reasons, partly to mark the different tribes and families.  “A volume would not suffice to explain all the marks in detail.”  Of the Dahomans, Forbes says (I., 28), “that according to rank and wealth anklets and armlets of all metals, and necklaces of glass, coral, and Popae beads, are worn by both sexes.”  Livingstone relates (Mis.  Trav., 276) that the copper rings worn on their ankles by the chiefs of Londa were so large and heavy that they seriously inconvenienced them in walking.  That this custom was entirely an outcome of vanity and emulation, and not a manifestation of the esthetic sense, is made clear by the further observations of Livingstone.  Men who could not afford so many of these copper rings would still, he found, strut along as if they had them.  “That is the way,” he was informed, “in which they show off their lordship in these parts.”  Among the Mojave Indians “nose-jewels designate a man of wealth and rank,” and elaborate headdresses of feathers are the insignia of the chiefs[93].  Champlain says that among the Iroquois those who wore three large plumes were chiefs.  In Thurn says (305) that each of the Guiana tribes makes its feather head-dresses of special colors; and Martins has the following regarding the Brazilian Indians:  “Commonly all the members of a tribe, or a horde, or a family, agree to wear certain ornaments or signs as characteristic marks.”  Among these are various ornaments of feathers on the head, pieces of wood, stones, or shells, in the ears, the nose, and lips, and especially tattoo marks.