especially if not of their own kinsfolk, in other districts it is hardly
safe to risk the displeasure of the natives at the removal of the dead—a
feeling which is not only due to affection or respect, but even more to
terror of the vengeance of the ghosts whose relics have been disturbed.
In describing complexion, such terms as “brown” or “olive,” so often
used without further definition in books of travel, are too inexact
to be of use. Broca’s scale of colours (_see_ Final Report of British
Association Committee on Anthropometric Method. R. Anthrop. Institute,
1909) gives means of matching the tints of skin, hair and eyes; if
this is not forthcoming, the paint-box should be used to record them.
Among rude tribes, the colour of the skin is often so masked by paint
and dirt that the subject must be washed to see the real complexion.
Hair is also an important race-mark, varying as it does in colour from
flaxen to black, and also in form and size of the hairs; for instance
the American Indian’s coarse straight hair seems almost like a horse’s
tail in comparison with the Bushman’s hair with its natural frizz of tiny
spirals. Locks of hair should therefore be collected. The traveller,
however, will often find some difficulty in getting such specimens, from
the objection prevalent in the uncivilised world of letting any part of
the body, such as hair and nail-clippings, pass into strangers’ hands
lest they should be used to bewitch their former owner. Even in such
countries as Italy, to ask for a lock of a peasant-girl’s hair may lead
to the anthropologist being suspected of wishing to practise love-charms
on her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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