Is a Dyak capable of admiring personal beauty? Some of the girls have
fine figures and pretty faces; but there is no evidence that any but
the voluptuous (non-esthetic) qualities of the figure are appreciated,
and as for the faces, if the men really appreciated beauty as we do,
they would first of all things insist that the girls must keep their
faces clean. An amusing experiment made by St. John with some Ida'an
girls (I., 339) is suggestive from this point of view:
"We selected one who had the dirtiest face--and it was
difficult to select where all were dirty--and asked her
to glance at herself in a looking-glass. She did so,
and passed it round to the others; we then asked which
they thought looked best, cleanliness or dirt: this was
received with a universal giggle.
"We had brought with us several dozen cheap
looking-glasses, so we told Iseiom, the daughter of Li
Moung, our host, that if she would go and wash her face
we would give her one. She treated the offer with
scorn, tossed her head, and went into her father's
room. But about half an hour afterwards, we saw her
come into the house and try to mix quietly with the
crowd; but it was of no use, her companions soon
noticed she had a clean face, and pushed her to the
front to be inspected. She blushingly received her
looking-glass and ran away, amid the laughter of the
crowd."
The example had a great effect, however, and before evening nine of
the girls had received looking-glasses.[184]