Ear-piercing is done to both men and women, generally when quite young, say at seven or twelve years of age. Both the lower and the upper lobes are pierced, sometimes only one or the other, and sometimes both; but the lower lobe is the one more commonly pierced. They can do it themselves, or can get someone else to do it. There is no ceremony. The piercing is done with the thorn of a tree, and the hole is afterwards gradually widened by the insertion of small pieces of wood. They never make large holes, or enlarge them greatly afterwards, as the holes are only used for the hanging of pendants, and not for the insertion of discs. After the piercing the patient must, until the wound is healed, abstain from all food except sweet potato; but there is no restriction as to the way in which this food is to be cooked, or the person who is to cook it. There is as regards ear-piercing no difference between the case of chiefs’ children and those of other people.
Body-staining is usual with both men and women, who do it for themselves, or get others to help them. There is no ceremony in connection with it. The colours generally adopted are red, greyish-yellow and black. The red stain is procured from an earth, which is obtained from the low countries; but they themselves also have an earth which is used, and produces a more bronzy red. The yellow stain is also got from an earth. All these coloured earths are worked into a paste with water, or with animal fat, if they can get it. I think they also get a red stain from the fruit of a species of Pandanus; but I am not quite clear as to this. The black stain is obtained from crushed vegetable ashes mixed with fat or water. The staining of the face is usually of a simple character. It may cover the whole face all in one colour or in different colours, and often one side of the face is stained one colour, and the other side another colour. They also make stripes and spots or either of them of any colour or colours on any part of the face. The red colour (I think especially that obtained from the Pandanus fruit) is also often applied in staining the whole body, this being especially done for dances and visiting; though a young dandy will often do it at other times. The black is the symbol of mourning, and will be referred to hereafter.
Hairdressing may be conveniently dealt with here. The Mafulu hairdressing is quite simple and rough, very different from the big, spreading, elaborately prepared and carefully combed mops of Mekeo. This is a factor which a traveller in this part of New Guinea may well bear in mind in connection with his impedimenta, as he has no difficulty in getting the Kuni and Mafulu people to carry packages on their heads, which the Mekeo folk are unwilling to do.
The modes in which the men dress their hair, so far as I was able to notice, may be roughly divided into the following categories:—(a) A simple crop of hair either cut quite close or allowed to grow fairly long, or anything between these two, but not dressed in any way, and probably uncombed, unkempt and untidy. This is the commonest form. (b) The same as (a), but with a band round the hair, separating the upper part of it from the lower, and giving the former a somewhat chignon-like appearance, (c) The hair done up all over the head in three-stranded plaits a few inches long, and about an eighth of an inch thick, having the appearance of short thick pieces of string, (d) The top of the head undressed, but the sides, and sometimes the back, of the head done up in plaits like (c). (e) A manufactured long shaped fringe of hair, human, but not the hair of the wearer (Plate [20], Fig. 3), is often worn over the forehead, just under the wearer’s own hair, so as to form, as it were, a part of it, pieces of string being attached to the ends of the fringe and passed round the back of the head, where they are tied. These fringes are made by tying a series of little bunches of hair close to one another along the double string, which forms the base of the fringe. Specimens examined by me were about 12 inches long and 1¼ inches wide (this width being the length of the bunches of hair), and contained about twenty bunches. It is usual to have two or three of these strings of bunches of hair tied together at the ends, thus making one broad fringe. These fringes are often worn in connection with styles (c) and (d) of hairdressing; but I never noticed them in association with (a) and (b).
I was told that men who have become bald sometimes wear complete artificial wigs, though I never saw an example of this.
The hairdressing of the women seemed to be similar to that of the men, except that I never saw the chignon-producing band, that they do not wear fringes, and that the entire or partial plaiting of the hair is more frequently adopted by them than it is by the men. I do not know whether the women ever indulge in entire wigs.
Method (a) is seen in many of the plates. Method (b) is illustrated, though not very well, in Plate [9] (the fourth and fifth man from the left) and in Plate [21] (the young man to the left, behind). Method (c) is adopted by four of the women in the frontispiece, by some of the women in Plate [16], by the woman in Plate [17], and by the little girl in Plates [22] and [23]. Method (d) is well illustrated by the second woman from the right in the frontispiece.
The cutting of the hair of both men and women is effected with sharp pieces of stone of the sort used for making adze blades, or with sharp pieces of bamboo or shell.
Infant deformation is not practised in any form by the Mafulu people; nor do they circumcise their children.