The Mafulu eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 349 pages of information about The Mafulu.

The Mafulu eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 349 pages of information about The Mafulu.
41 10 1/2 Faintly tinted broad horizontal and vertical lines
                and triangles in figure represent yellow stain.  No
                other staining in the apron.
42 6 3/4 Background of design unstained, but back fold end of
                apron and fringe stained yellow.
43 6 3/4 No background staining in the apron.  The smallness
                of the amount of decoration and the substitution of
                two tails for a fringe are, I think, unusual.

Dancing ribbons are made out of bark cloth by both men and women, but are coloured by men only.  These are worn by both men and women at dances, the ribbons hanging round the body from the abdominal belt or a cord, three or four or five of them being worn by one person, and one of these commonly hanging in front.  They are generally 2 or 3 inches wide and about 4 feet long, but a portion of this length is required for hitching the ribbon round the belt.  I think their ornamentation is confined to staining in transverse bands of alternating colour or of one colour and unstained cloth.  Plate 13, Fig. 4, illustrates the colouring of two ribbons (each 2 inches wide), the alternation in one case being red and yellow, and in the other red and unstained cloth; and the men figured in Plate 70 are wearing ribbons, though they are not very clearly shown in the plate.

The feather ornaments for the head, and especially those worn at dances, and the feather ornaments worn on the back at dances present such an enormous variety of colours and designs that it would be impossible to describe them here without very greatly increasing the length of the book.  The ornaments are often very large, sometimes containing eight or ten or even twelve rows of feathers, one behind another.  They can usually be distinguished from those made by the Mekeo people by a general inferiority in design and make of the ornament as a whole, the Mafulu people having less artistic skill in this respect than the people of the lowlands.  The ornaments include feathers of parrots, cockatoos, hornbills, cassowaries, birds of paradise, bower birds and some others.  One never or rarely sees feathers of sea-birds, or waterfowl, or Goura pigeons (which, I was told, are not found among the mountains), as the Mafulu people in their trading with the people of the plains take in exchange things which they cannot themselves procure, rather than feathers, which are so plentiful with them.

The black cassowary feather is important in Mafulu as being the special feather distinction of chiefs; but, though chiefs are as a rule possessed of more and better ornaments than are the poorer and unimportant people, they have no other special and distinctive ornament.

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The Mafulu from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.