Young girls are costumed in the simplest possible style, namely, a piece of cotton stuff wrapped round the waist, and descending half way to the knee. Should the girl be rich enough to afford a large wrapper, she brings one end of it upward and throws it over the left shoulder. In Tigré the girls prefer a black goatskin, ornamented with cowries. A married woman wears a sort of loose shirt, and a mantle, or quarry, similar to that which is worn by the men, but of finer materials. Should she be able to own a mule, she wears trousers, which are very full at the waist, and decrease gradually to the ankle, where they fit like the skin.
As to their ornaments, they are so numerous as to defy description. That which costs the least, and is yet the most valued, is the tattoo, which is employed with a profusion worthy of the New Zealander. “The Tigréan ladies,” so writes Mr. Parkyns, “tattoo themselves; though, as this mode of adorning the person is not common excepting among the inhabitants of the capital and persons who have passed some time there, I should judge it to be a fashion imported from the Amhara.
“The men seldom tattoo more than one ornament on the upper part of the arm, near the shoulder, while the women cover nearly the whole of their bodies with stars, lines, and crosses, often rather tastefully arranged. I may well say nearly the whole of their persons, for they mark the neck, shoulders, breasts, and arms, down to the fingers, which are enriched with lines, to imitate rings, nearly to the nails. The feet, ankles, and calves of the legs are similarly adorned, and even the gums are by some pricked entirely blue, while others have them striped alternately blue and the natural pink.
“To see some of their designs, one would give them credit for some skill in the handling their pencil; but, in fact, their system of drawing the pattern is purely mechanical. I had one arm adorned; a rather blind old woman was the artist; her implements consisted of a small pot of some sort of blacking, made, she told me, of charred herbs, a large homemade iron pin, about one-fourth of an inch at the end of which was ground fine, a bit or two of hollow cane, and a piece of straw. The two last-named items were her substitutes for pencils.
“Her circles were made by dipping the end of a piece of cane of the required size into the blacking, and making its impression on the skin; while an end of the straw, bent to the proper length, and likewise blackened, marked all the lines, squares, diamonds, &c., which were to be of equal length. Her design being thus completed, she worked away on it with her pin, which she dug in as far as the thin part would enter, keeping the supply of blacking sufficient, and going over the same ground repeatedly to insure regularity and unity in the lines. With some persons the first effect of this tattooing is to produce a considerable amount of fever, from the irritation caused by the punctures, especially so with the ladies, from the extent of surface thus rendered sore. To allay this irritation, they are generally obliged to remain for a few days in a case of vegetable matter, which is plastered all over them in the form of a sort of green poultice. A scab forms over the tattooing, which should not be picked off, but allowed to fall off of itself. When this disappears, the operation is complete, and the marks are indelible; nay, more, the Abyssinians declare that they may be traced on the person’s bones even after death has bared them of their fleshy covering.”
The women also wear a vast number of silver ornaments, such as several chains round the neck, three pairs of silver or gilt bracelets, a number of little silver ornaments hung like bells to the ankles, above which are a series of bangles of the same metal. A wealthy woman has also a large flat silver case, containing talismans, and ornamented with bells of the same metal, suspended by four silver chains; while her hair is decorated with a large silver pin, elaborately made, and furnished with a number of pendent ornaments.
The [illustration No. 1], 617th page, exhibits the costume of an Abyssinian lady, and the difference in dress between herself and her servants. The latter—who, of course, are her slaves, no other idea of servitude entering the Abyssinian mind—are washing clothes in a brook, in preparation for the Feast of St. John, the only day in the year when the Abyssinians trouble them- to wash either their clothes or themselves. Other slaves are carrying water-jars on their backs—not on their heads; and in the foreground stands their mistress giving her orders. The reader will note the graceful way in which the mantle is put on, and the string of leathern amulet cases which hangs by her side.
As to the hair itself, it is dressed in a peculiar manner. It is gathered into a multitude of plaits, beginning at the very top of the head, and falling as low as the neck. Both sexes have the hair plaited in this manner, but the men wear their plaits in various ways. According to strict Abyssinian etiquette, which has greatly faded in later years, a youth who has not distinguished himself ought to wear his hair unplaited. As soon as he has killed a man in battle, he shaves his head, with the exception of a single plait, and for every additional victim a fresh plait is added. When he kills the fifth, he is allowed to wear the whole of his hair in tresses.
This mode of dressing the hair occupies a vast amount of time, but time is of no value to an Abyssinian, who expends several hours upon his head once every fortnight or so. The plaits are held in their places by a sort of fixture made of boiled cotton-seeds, and are plentifully saturated with butter. Vast quantities of this latter article are consumed in Abyssinian toilets, and it is considered a mark of fashion to place a large pat of butter on the top of the head before going out in the morning, and to allow it to be melted by the heat of the sun and run over the hair. Of course it drips from the ends of the long tresses on the neck and clothes of the wearer, but such stains are considered as marks of wealth. Sometimes it runs over the face, and is apt to get into the eyes, so that in hot weather the corner of the quarry is largely used in wiping away the trickling butter.
In order to preserve the arrangement of the hair during the night, they use instead of a pillow a sort of short crutch, looking very like a common scraper with a rounded top.