In one part of Africa the eyelids are coloured black; in another the nails are coloured yellow or purple. In many places the hair is dyed of various tints. In different countries the teeth are stained black, red, blue, &c., and in the Malay Archipelago it is thought shameful to have white teeth like those of a dog. Not one great country can be named, from the Polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. This practice was followed by the Jews of old and by the ancient Britons. In Africa some of the natives tattoo themselves, but it is much more common to raise protuberances by rubbing salt into incisions made in various parts of the body; and these are considered by the inhabitants of Kordofan and Darfur “to be great personal attractions.” In the Arab countries no beauty can be perfect until the cheeks “or temples have been gashed.”[415] In South America, as Humboldt remarks, “a mother would be accused of culpable indifference towards her children, if she did not employ artificial means to shape the calf of the leg after the fashion of the country.” In the Old and New World the shape of the skull was formerly modified during infancy in the most extraordinary manner, as is still the case in many places, and such deformities are considered ornamental. For instance, the savages of Colombia[416] deem a much flattened head “an essential point of beauty.” The hair is treated with especial care in various countries; it is allowed to grow to full length, so as to reach to the ground, or is combed into “a compact frizzled mop, which is the Papuan’s pride and glory.”[417] In Northern Africa “a man requires a period of from eight to ten years to perfect his coiffure.” With other nations the head is shaved, and in parts of South America and Africa even the eyebrows are eradicated. The natives of the Upper Nile knock out the four front teeth, saying that they do not wish to resemble brutes. Further south, the Batokas knock out the two upper incisors, which, as Livingstone[418] remarks, gives the face a hideous appearance, owing to the growth of the lower jaw; but these people think the presence of the incisors most unsightly, and on beholding some Europeans, cried out, “Look at the great teeth!” The great chief Sebituani tried in vain to alter this fashion. In various parts of Africa and in the Malay Archipelago the natives file the incisor teeth into points like those of a saw, or pierce them with holes, into which they insert studs.