the East African Wa-taïta[978] pull them down almost to the shoulders. Among the Easter Islanders, says Beechey, “the lobe, deprived of its ear-ring, hangs dangling against the neck, and has a very disagreeable appearance, particularly when wet. It is sometimes so long as to be greatly in the way; to obviate which, they pass the lobe over the upper part of the ear, or more rarely, fasten one lobe to the other, at the back of the head.”[979] Scarcely less subject to mutilations are the teeth. In the Malay Archipelago, the filing and blackening of the teeth are thought to produce a most beautiful result, white teeth being in great disesteem.[980] The Australians often knock out one or two front teeth of the upper jaw, and several tribes in New Guinea file their teeth sharp.[981] Again, the Damaras file the middle teeth in the upper jaw into the form of a swallow’s tail, and knock out four teeth in the lower jaw; whilst one of the Makalaka tribes, north of the Zambesi, and the Matongas, on its bank, “break out their top incisor-teeth from the sheerest vanity. Their women say that it is only horses that eat with all their teeth, and that men ought not to eat like horses.”[982] Many savage men take most pride in the hair of the head. Now it is painted in a showy manner, now decorated with beads and tinsel, now combed and arranged with the most exquisite care. The Kandhs have their hair, which is worn very long, drawn forward and rolled up till it looks like a horn projecting from between the eyes. Around this it is their delight to wear a piece of red cloth, and they insert the feathers of favourite birds, as also a pipe, comb, &c.[983] The men of Tana, of the New Hebrides, wear their hair “twelve and eighteen inches long, and have it divided into some six or seven hundred little locks or tresses;”[984] and, among the Latúka, a man requires a period of from eight to ten years to perfect his coiffure.[985] In North America, Hearne saw several men about six feet high, who had preserved “a single lock of their hair that, when let down, would trail on the ground as they walked.”[986] Other Indians practise the custom of shaving the head and ornamenting it with the crest of deer’s hairs; and wigs are used by several savage peoples.[987] The Indians of Guiana, the Fuegians, Chavantes, Uaupés,[988] and other tribes are in the habit of pulling out their eyebrows.