GROTESQUE HEAD-DRESSES.—CURIOUS FASHIONS IN TEETH.—A VENERABLE GRANITE BOULDER.—INTERIOR OF A HUT.—A WARLIKE RACE OF SAVAGES.—GIVING THEM AN ELECTRIC SHOCK.
How strange were those Ishogos! They were unlike all the other savages I met. What a queer way to arrange their hair! It requires from twenty-five to thirty years for an Ishogo woman to be able to build upon her head one of their grotesque head-dresses. The accompanying pictures will show you how they look. But you will ask how they can arrange hair in such a manner. I will tell you: A frame is made, and the hair is worked upon it; but if there is no frame, then they use grass-cloth, or any other stuffing, and give the shape they wish to the head-dress. A well-known hair-dresser, who, by the way, is always a female, is a great person in an Ishogo village, and is kept pretty busy from morning till afternoon. It takes much time to work up the long wool on these negroes' heads, but, when one of these heads of hair, or chignons, is made, it lasts for a long time—sometimes for two or three months—without requiring repair. I need not tell you that after a few weeks the head gets filled with specimens of natural history. The Ishogo women use a queer comb: it is like a sharp-pointed needle from one to eighteen inches in length, and, when the insects bite, the point is applied with vigor.
HORIZONTAL CHIGNON.
VERTICAL CHIGNON.
MALE HEAD-DRESS.