| OCR Text |
Show 76 PICT0GRAPH8 OP THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. sented in the accompanying Plate, III. JSTo history of these heads can be obtained. The skin is almost perfect, and has become much brighter in tint than the original color. The tattooing is a blue black, and in certain lights becomes almost bright indigo. In many of the markings there appear slight grooves, which add greatly to the general ornamentation, breaking the monotony of usually plain surfaces. Whether any mechanical work was performed upon the heads after death is not positively known, though from the general appearance of the work it would be suggested that the sharp creases or grooves was done subsequent to the death of the individual. The tattooing shows sub- cutaneous coloring, which indicates that at least part of the ornamentation was done in life. Figure 37 is an illustration from Te Ika a Maui, etc., op. cit.} facing page 378. It shows the " grave of an Australian native, with his name, rank, tribe, etc., cut in hieroglyphics on the trees," which " hieroglyphics' 7 are supposed to be connected with his tattoo marks. Fio. 37.- Australian grave and carved trees. Mr. I. O. Russell, in his sketch of New Zealand, published in the American Naturalist, Volume XIII, p. 72, February, 1879, remarks, that the desire of the Maori for ornament is so great that they covered their features with tattooing, transferring indelibly to their faces complicated patterns of curved and spiral lines, similar to the designs with which they decorated their canoes and their houses. In Mangaia, of the Hervey Group, the tattoo is said to be in imitation of the stripes on the two kinds of fish, avini and paoro, the color of which is blue. The legend of this is kept in the song of Ina'. See Myths and songs from the South Pacific, London, 1876, p. 94. |
