Close to the huts are placed the grain stores, which are very ingeniously made. First, a number of rude stone pillars are set in a circle, having flat stones laid on their tops, much resembling the remains of Stonehenge. Upon these is secured an enormous cylinder of basket work plastered with clay, the top of which is covered with a conical roof of bamboo and grass. When a woman wishes to take grain out of the storehouse, she places against it a large branch from which the smaller boughs have been cut, leaving stumps of a foot or ten inches in length, and by means of this rude ladder she easily ascends to the roof.
The appearance of this tribe is most remarkable, as they use less clothing and more ornament than any people at present known. We will begin with the men. Their dress is absolutely nothing at all as far as covering the body is concerned, but, as if to compensate for this nudity, there is scarcely a square inch of the person without its adornment. In the first place, they use paint as a succedaneum for dress, and cover themselves entirely with colors, not merely rubbing themselves over with one tint, but using several colors, and painting themselves in a wonderful variety of patterns, many of them showing real artistic power, while others are simply grotesque.
Two young men who came as messengers from Chongi had used three colors. They had painted their faces white, the pigment being wood ashes, and their bodies were covered with two coats of paint, the first purple, and the second ashen gray. This latter coat they had scraped off in irregular patterns, just as a painter uses his steel comb when graining wood, so that the purple appeared through the gray, and looked much like the grain of mahogany. Some of the men cover their bodies with horizontal stripes, like those of the zebra, or with vertical stripes running along the curve of the spine and limbs, or with zigzag markings of light colors. Some very great dandies go still further, and paint their bodies chequer fashion, exactly like that of a harlequin. White always plays a large part in their decorations, and is often applied in broad bands round the waist and neck.
The head is not less gorgeously decorated. First the hair is teased out with a pin, and is then dressed with clay so as to form it into a thick felt-like mass. This is often further decorated with pipe-clay laid on in patterns, and at the back of the neck is inserted a piece of sinew about a foot in length. This odd-looking queue is turned up, and finished off at the tip with a tuft of fur, the end of a leopard’s tail being the favorite ornament. Shells, beads, and other ornaments are also woven into the hair, and in most cases a feather is added by way of a finishing touch. The whole contour of the headdress is exactly like that of the pantaloon of the stage, and the sight of a man with the body of a harlequin and the head of a pantaloon is too much for European gravity to withstand.
Besides all this elaborate decoration, the men wear a quantity of bracelets, anklets; and earrings. The daily toilet of a Gani dandy occupies a very long time, and in the morning the men may be seen in numbers sitting under the shade of trees, employed in painting their own bodies or dressing the hair of a friend, and applying paint where he would not be able to guide the brush. As may be inferred, they are exceedingly vain of their personal appearance; and when their toilet is completed, they strut about in order to show themselves, and continually pose themselves in attitudes which they think graceful, but which might be characterized as conceited.
Each man usually carries with him an odd little stool with one leg, and instead of sitting on the ground, as is done by most savages, the Gani make a point of seating themselves on these little stools, which look very like those which are used by Swiss herdsmen when they milk the cows, and only differ from them in not being tied to the body. The [engraving No. 1] on page 431 will help the reader to understand this description.
The women are not nearly such votaries of fashion as their husbands, principally because they have to work and to nurse the children, who would make short work of any paint that they might use. Like the parents, the children have no clothes, and are merely suspended in a rather wide strap passing over one shoulder of the mother and under the other. As, however, the rays of the sun might be injurious to them, a large gourd is cut in two pieces, hollowed out, and one of the pieces inverted over the child’s head and shoulders.
The Gani have cattle, but are very poor herdsmen, and have suffered the herd to deteriorate in size and quality. They cannot even drive their cattle properly, each cow recognizing a special driver, who grasps the tail in one hand and a horn in the other, and thus drags and pushes the animal along.