Other ornaments are bangles and anklets, made by twisting thick silver wire about the limb, and belts and necklaces made of rupees or smaller coins. Rings are worn, either of silver or shell. Face and chest are sometimes covered with vermilion or saffron paint, but the natives do not employ any form of tattoo or scarification. Hair is usually worn short by both sexes, but there is a more or less distinctive style or fashion at all the islands. On the occasion of a sudden or violent death at a village all its inhabitants are required to shave their heads, and the women their eyebrows as well.[180] Mourning for a relative is indicated in like manner as well as by other observances. With infants the head is often shaved for a time, and for the next few years the hair is kept short, in which way it is also worn by all ages and sexes. Boys as a rule have their heads cropped. Fairly long hair is worn by many, but in no case is it ever permitted to grow below the shoulders; at that point it is cut across horizontally, and then, when bushy, the hair presents much the appearance represented in Assyrian and Egyptian records. The Nicobarese possess no musical instrument of their own invention, but very occasionally some individual attempts to produce, without much success, a copy of something he has seen in the hands of foreigners--a violin, guitar, etc. Two instruments are, however, in use among them: one, a seven-holed flageolet, which is Burmese, and the other, the _danang_, borrowed from the Indian "sitar," has three frets, a string of cane, and two sound-holes.[181] "It is a hollowed bamboo, about 2-1/2 feet long and 3 inches in diameter, along the outside of which there is stretched from end to end a single string, made of the threads of a split rattan, and the place under the string is hollowed, to prevent it from touching. This instrument is played upon in the same way as a guitar" while rested on the knee.[182] With the exception of dancing, singing, and feasting, there are hardly any organised amusements. The exact forms of the dances vary, but for special occasions new figures and songs are composed and assiduously practised. In the north-west, challenges for canoe races, or processions rather, circulate amongst the Kar Nicobar villages, and are taken part in by twenty or thirty men a-side. The large canoes are decorated, and the course is a long one--several miles along the coast from village to village. As the men sing at the top of their voices throughout the race, they are generally exhausted at the finish. The pace is not remarkable, and the canoes keep abreast throughout, neither seeming to mind which comes in first. Wrestling is a favourite pursuit of the boys. There is no science or cunning displayed, and the rounds are very short, one or the other combatant going down at once.