Equally remote as the foregoing from all ideas of personal beauty or
of courtship and the desire to inspire sexual passion is the custom so
widely prevalent of painting and otherwise "adorning" the body for
war. The Australians diversely made use of red and yellow ochre, or of
white pigment for war paint.[53] Caesar relates that the ancient
Britons stained themselves blue with woad to give themselves a more
horrid aspect in war. "Among ourselves," as Tylor remarks, "the guise
which was so terrific in the Red Indian warrior has comedown to make
the circus clown a pattern of folly,"[54] Regarding Canadian Indians
we read that
"some may be seen with blue noses, but with cheeks and
eyebrows black; others mark forehead, nose, and cheeks with
lines of various colors; one would think he beheld so many
hobgoblins. They believe that in colors of this description
they are dreadful to their enemies, and that otherwise their
own line of battle will be concealed as by a veil; finally,
that it hardens the skin of the body, so that the cold of
the winter is easily borne."[55]
The Sioux Indians blackened their faces when they went on the warpath.
They
"highly prize personal bravery, and therefore constantly
wear the marks of distinction which they received for their
exploits; among these are, especially, tufts of human hair
attached to the arms and legs, and feathers on their
heads."[56]
When Sioux warriors return from the warpath with scalps "the squaws as
well as the men paint with vermilion a semicircle in front of each
ear."[57] North Carolina Indians when going to war painted their faces
all over red, while those of South Carolina, according to DeBrahm,
"painted their faces red in token of friendship and black in
expression of warlike intentions." "Before charging the foe," says
Dorsey, "the Osage warriors paint themselves anew. This is called the
death paint." The Algonquins, on the day of departure for war, dressed
in their best, coloring the hair red and painting their faces and
bodies red and black. The Cherokees when going to war dyed their hair
red and adorned it with feathers of various colors.[58] Bancroft says
(I., 105) that when a Thlinkit arms himself for war he paints his face
and powders his hair a brilliant red. "He then ornaments his head with
a white eagle feather as a token of stern, vindictive determination."
John Adair wrote of the Chickasaws, in 1720, that they "readily know
achievements in war by the blue marks over their breasts and arms,
they being as legible as our alphabetical characters are to us"--which
calls attention to a very frequent use of what are supposed to be
ornaments as merely part of a language of signs. Irving remarks in
_Astoria,_ regarding the Arikara warriors, that "some had the stamp of
a red hand across their mouths, a sign that they had drunk the
life-blood of an enemy." In Schoolcraft we read (II., 58) that among
the Dakotas on St. Peter's River a red hand means that the wearer has
been wounded by an enemy, while a black hand indicates "I have slain
an enemy." The Hidatsa Indians wore eagle feathers "to denote acts of
courage or success in war"; and the Dakotas and others indicated by
means of special spots or colored bars in their feathers or cuts in
them, that the wearer had killed an enemy, or wounded one, or taken a
scalp, or killed a woman, etc. A black feather denoted that an Ojibwa
woman was killed. The marks on their blankets had similar
meanings.[59] Peter Carder, an Englishman captive among the
Brazilians, wrote:
"This is to be noted, that how many men these savages
doe kill, so many holes they will have in their visage,
beginning first in the nether lippe, then in the
cheekes, thirdly, in both their eye-browes, and lastly
in their eares."[60]
Of the Abipones we read that,
"distrusting their courage, strength, and arms, they
think that paint of various colors, feathers, shouting,
trumpets, and other instruments of terror will forward
their success."[61]
Fancourt(314) says of the natives of Yucatan that "in their wars, and
when they went to their sacrificial dances and festivals, they had
their faces, arms, thighs, and legs painted and naked." In Fiji the
men bore a hole through the nose and put in a couple of feathers, nine
to twelve inches long, which spread out over each side of the face
like immense mustaches. They do this "to give themselves a fiercer
appearance."[62] Waitz notes that in Tahiti mothers compressed the
heads of their infant boys "to make their aspect more terrible and
thus turn them into more formidable warriors." The Tahitians, as Ellis
informs us, "went to battle in their best clothes, sometimes perfumed
with fragrant oil, and adorned with flowers."[63] Of the wild tribes
in Kondhistan, too, we read that "it is only, however, when they go
out to battle ... that they adorn themselves with all their
finery."[64]