The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 1 of 2: Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristicsWood, J. G. (John George)
History
The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 1 of 2: Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics
Wood, J. G. (John George)
Anthropology; Ethnology; Manners and customs
The young Kaffir women are quite as remarkable for the beauty of their
form as are the men, and the very trifling dress which they wear serves
to show off their figures to the best advantage. Some of the young
Kaffir girls are, in point of form, so perfect that they would have
satisfied even the fastidious taste of the classical sculptor. There
is, however, in them the same tendency to high shoulders which has
already been mentioned, and in some cases the shoulders are set almost
squarely across the body. In most instances, however, the shoulders
have the proper droop, while the whole of the bust is an absolute model
of perfection--rounded, firm, and yet lithe as the body of a panther.
There is now before me a large collection of photographs, representing
Kaffir girls of various ages, and, in spite of the invariable stiffness
of photographic portraits, they exhibit forms which might serve as
models for any sculptor. If they could only have been photographed
while engaged in their ordinary pursuits, the result would have been
most artistic, but the very knowledge that they were not to move hand
or foot has occasioned them to assume attitudes quite at variance with
the graceful unconsciousness of their ordinary gestures.
Besides the stiffness which has already been mentioned, there are
several points which make a really good photographic portrait almost
an impossibility. In the first place, the sunlight is so brilliant
that the shadows become developed into black patches, and the high
lights into splashes of white without the least secondary shading. The
photographer of Kaffir life cannot put his models into a glass room
cunningly furnished with curtains and tinted glass. He must take the
camera into the villages, photograph the inhabitants as they stand or
sit in the open air, and make a darkened hut act as a developing-tent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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