Cone of quartz worn
in the lip (actual
size).
Occasionally there were to be seen some broad girdles covered with a profusion of cowries, such as the Niam-niam were said to wear; but hitherto the Madi were the only people I had met with who retained any value for cowries, which for some time had ceased to be held in much repute in the Gazelle district. The mode of wearing these conchylia was to split off their convex backs and to fasten them on so as to display only the white orifices.
Apron worn by the Madi.
Like the northern Bongo the Mittoo disdain devoting their attention to the decoration of their hair: men and women alike wear it quite short. The portrait of Goggo has already furnished a representation of one of their elaborate perukes.
The plucking out of the eyelashes and the eyebrows is quite an ordinary proceeding among the women. The men have coverings for their head the same as the Niam-niam. The accompanying portrait of Ngahma shows such an article of headgear, suggesting the comparison either of a Russian coachman’s hat, or of the cap of a mandarin. They are very fond likewise of fixing a number of iron spikes to a plate which they fasten behind the head, and to these they attach strings of beads and tufts of hair. The Madi make also a sort of cap rather prettily ornamented with coloured beads and which fits the head tight like a skull-cap.
It is only among the men that tattooing is practised on a large scale, the lines usually radiating from the belly in the direction of the shoulders like the buttons on certain uniforms; the women merely have a couple of parallel rows of dotted lines upon the forehead. The variety is very great of the ornaments which they construct out of iron and copper, consisting of bells, drops, small axes and anchors, diminutive rings, and platters, and trinkets of every sort. All the women wear a host of rings in their ears.