VAIN DESIRE TO ATTRACT ATTENTION

Thus we see that an immense number of mutilations of the body and alleged “decorations” of it are not intended by these races as things of beauty, but have special meanings or uses in connection with protection, war, superstition, mourning, or the desire to mark distinctions between the tribes, or degrees of rank within one tribe or horde.  Usually the “ornamentations” are prescribed for all members of a tribe of the same sex, and their acceptance is rigidly enforced.  At the same time there is scope for variety in the form of deviations or exaggerations, and these are resorted to by ambitious individuals to attract attention to their important selves, and thus to gratify vanity, which, in the realm of fashion, is a thing entirely apart from—­and usually antagonistic to—­the sense of beauty[94].  At Australian dances various colors are used with the object of attracting attention.  Especially fantastic are their “decorations” at the corroborees, when the bodies of the men are painted with white streaks that make them look like skeletons.  Bulmer believed that their object was to “make themselves as terrible as possible to the beholders and not beautiful or attractive,” while Grosse thinks (65) that as these dances usually take place by moonlight, the object of the stripes is to make the dancers more conspicuous—­two explanations which are not inconsistent with each other.

Fry relates[95] that the Khonds adorn their hair till they may be seen “intoxicated with vanity on its due decoration.”  Hearne (306) saw Indians who had a single lock of hair that “when let down would trail on the ground as they walked.”  Anderson expresses himself with scientific precision when he writes (136) that in Fiji the men “who like to attract the attention of the opposite sex, don their best plumage.”  The attention may be attracted by anything that is conspicuous, entirely apart from the question whether it be regarded as a thing of beauty or not.  Bourne makes the very suggestive statement (69-70) that in Patagonia the beautiful plumage of the ostrich was not appreciated, but allowed to blow all over the country, while the natives adorned themselves with beads and cheap brass and copper trinkets.  We may therefore assume that in those cases where feathers are used for “adornment” it is not because their beauty is appreciated but because custom has given them a special significance.  In many cases they indicate that the wearer is a person of rank—­chief or medicine man—­as we saw in the preceding pages.  We also saw that special marks in feathers among Dakotas indicated that the wearer had taken a human life, which, more than anything else, excites the admiration of savage women; so that what fascinates them in such a case is not the feather itself but the deed it stands for.  Panlitzschke informs us (E.N.O.Afr., chap. ii.), that among the African Somali and Gallas every man