ARM AND HAND ORNAMENTATION
Men wear on one or both upper arms black bands of braided nito. These are about 1.5 centimeters in breadth and are braided into one continuous piece of such a size as to fit the arm tightly. The writer has seen many that fitted so closely that they caused sores. They are, besides being distinctly ornamental, designed to serve another purpose, for they are supposed to impart strength to the muscles.
Men often wear, on one or both wrists, one or more vegetable ligatures plaited in one continuous piece. These are of a jet black glossy color when made of the ág-sam6 vine. They are rectangular in cross section, being about 6 millimeters by 6 millimeters. They must be moistened to make the filaments expand so that the wearer can pass them over his hands on the wrist. On drying they contract to the size of the wrist, Women often wear a few of these with their forearm ornaments.
6Both pug-nút and ág-sam are species of nito (Lygodium sp.).
Crude rings, round or flat, more commonly beaten out of brass wire or of copper money, but occasionally made of silver money and still less occasionally of carabao horn, adorn in greater or less number the fingers of both men and women.
The forearm adornments of women are more numerous and elaborate than those of men. Besides the vegetable circlets described above, segments of the black coral plant,7 cut into palm lengths and bent into rings by heating, are worn on either or both arms, though, in case of an insufficient supply, the left arm is adorned in preference to the right. These marine ringlets are not solely for purposes of ornamentation, for a magic influence is attributed to them, at least by the Manóbos of the upper Agúsan. They are thought to contract and grip, as it were, the wearer's arm on the approach and in the presence of danger. Hence they are greatly prized but are comparatively rare. This is due to the difficulty of obtaining the plant as it grows in deep water where the danger from sharks deters the native divers.
7Called sag-ai-ság-ai in Manóbo and baná-ug in Bisáya (Antipatharia sp.).
The whorl of a sea shell,8 ground and polished into white heavy rings, whose cross section is an isosceles triangle, form a very common forearm adornment for women on the upper Agúsan. Sometimes as many as five of these are worn, ordinarily on the left arm. The weight of a full equipment of shell bracelets may amount to at least a kilo. The use of such cumbrous adornments is confined to festal occasions except in the case of unmarried maidens, who nearly always wear them. These shell bracelets with the black alternating rings of sea coral are very becoming indeed, as they tend, by the contrast of jet black and marble white, to set off the color of the skin to advantage.
8Tak-lo-bo (Tridacna gigas).