THE HAIR
The lanugo—Hairiness of body—Female beards—The hair
of the scalp and how it is worn—Its colour—Aboriginal
blondes—Albinism—Erythrism—Fair hair a likely “throw-back” to
prototype—Influences of climate and geological antiquity—Other
instances of fair-haired aborigines—Grey hair—Baldness—The
beard and methods of dressing it.
Let us proceed with a discussion of the aboriginal’s hair. As in the
youthful individuals of most races of man, including the European, the
Australian is born with a rudimentary, short body-hair, known as the
_lanugo_. This growth covers practically all surfaces of the child’s
figure, but is thickest on the back.
The colour of this infantile coating of hair is not, as one might have
expected, black, but fair, and casts a pretty golden sheen over the
sombre skin. In later adult life this growth of hair becomes stronger,
and darkens to complete blackness. In ripe old age, the hairs turn grey.
Many of the old men have a remarkable hairiness of the body, amounting
almost to a _hypertrichosis_. In these cases the hairs are up to an inch
long, and cover especially thickly the back, the chest, the thighs, and
buttocks (Plate VII, 1). Amongst the women quite pretentious beards are
of rather frequent occurrence (Plate III, 2).
With regard to the hair which covers the scalp, we find that, in the
majority of cases, it is wavy. It is by no means uncommon, however, to
find the Australian’s hair distinctly frizzy; straight hair is least
frequently observed. The male aboriginal generally wears his hair in long
loose curls; often these are matted together artificially with grease and
red ochre into long, pendant, sausage-like masses. In the central region
of Australia, the men pull out the hair growing on the upper portion
of the forehead, each hair being removed separately. A hair-string band
is worn over the cleared portion of the forehead, and this, at the same
time, keeps back the locks of hair. Very often, in the central as well
as in the northern districts, the hair thus tied back is worked up with
a pad of emu feathers into a chignon, which is tied round and round with
human hair-string (Plate IX). The women are frequently asked to cut their
hair short, and to deliver the clippings to their husbands, who work them
up into coils of string, out of which they subsequently fashion hair
belts and a variety of other articles in daily use. Occasionally one
sees an aboriginal whose hair stands about his head after the type of a
Struwwelpeter, or it may hang from the scalp like a mop. The last-named
types were more plentiful on the north coast than in central Australia,
but a number of cases were recorded among the Aluridja and Wongapitcha.
The men of the same west-central tribes decorate their hair with wooden
pins whose surfaces they cut longitudinally over certain sections, so
that the shavings, which form, curl outwards but still remain attached to
the rod. The ornaments which go by the name of “_elenba_” remind one of
trimmed skewers occasionally seen in butcher-shops. One or two of them
are worn long at the back of the head (Plate IX, 2), or a number of them
short, as a fringe above the forehead. The women of the same districts
try to make their hair look attractive by attaching to the tips of the
matted locks numerous seed-capsules of the Bloodwood eucalyptus. The
hairs are rammed into the open ends of the seeds and kept there by small
plugs of wood or blebs of resin. The little ornaments dangle about the
forehead and shoulders and are known as “_dindula_” The seeds of the
Currajong are similarly used. Vide Plate VI, 2.
The colour of the adult Australian’s hair is almost invariably black, but
often of different intensities over different parts of the scalp. When a
hair is pulled and examined under magnification, the part which had been
embedded in the follicle is not infrequently discovered to be colourless
or brownish.
By far the most remarkable, and genetically perhaps the most important,
subject in connection with the colour of the Australian aboriginal’s
hair is the juvenile _blonde_. In 1903, I first came across a number of
children of the Ulparidja group of the Wongapitcha, in the Tomkinson
Ranges, who had heads of hair of a flaxen colour. Since then, I have
seen many similar cases among the Aluridja, in the Lilla Creek district,
several Wongapitcha from south of the Musgrave Ranges, at Ooldea, and a
limited number among the western Arunndta, on the Finke River, south of
the MacDonnell Ranges. The colour of these children’s hair varied from a
straw-yellow, through light brown, to dark brown (Plate X, 1).
It appeared that, towards the age of puberty, the shade became visibly
deeper; after which it gradually changed to dark brown or black. This
change of colour I have recently been able to watch very closely in the
hair of two young gins who have been under daily observation for over
four years.
Among the adults, such blondes are unknown; two or three cases of brown
hair in grown-up persons, however, came under our observation among the
Aluridja, west of the Finke River.
True albinism has not been authoritatively established, as existing among
the Australian aboriginals. The case of a young woman was reported from
the Depôt on the Victoria River, who is said to have been quite “white,”
and to have had “red” eyes. This albino, I was informed, was photographed
by the local constable shortly before she died in 1921.
Erythrism, too, is practically unknown; the only cases of the latter on
record are four from the Tully and Bloomfield Rivers, discovered by Dr.
Walter Roth. Red hair is, however, not appreciated by the aborigines, who
incline to hold it to ridicule.
[Illustration: _PLATE VII_
1. Old Yantowannta man, showing a strong growth of hair covering the body.
2. Old Yantowannta man, showing peculiar method of wearing the beard.]
When, therefore, we consider the likely significance of fair-haired
aborigines, from an anthropological standpoint, we cannot ignore the
claims of atavism. Noticing the phenomenon so abundantly developed, as it
has been our good fortune recently to record, one is inclined to behold
in it a primitive feature, which was originally typical of the ancestral
hordes from whom the aboriginal Australian has sprung. This assumption is
strengthened by the light colour of the lanugo regularly observed in the
children.
The question arises whether the dark colour of the Australian’s skin (and
hair) is entirely a secondary development due to climatic influences.
The superficial nature of the pigmentation in the aboriginal’s skin is
in support of such reasoning. It is known that the hair of some Arctic
explorers, after a protracted sojourn in the frigid zones, has turned
from dark to fair; and the same has been reported of alpine guides. We
shall see presently that there is evidence of great antiquity of man in
Australia; his occupation of the land dating back in all probability
to the early Tertiary period. Geology teaches us that the climate has
fluctuated considerably since and before that time. Consequently, it is
quite within reason to assume that, in the earlier days of his racial
existence, there may have been no need for any considerable accumulation
of pigment cells within his skin, as a means of safeguarding his system
against a sun, anything like so severe as is nowadays reigning over
Australia. From later Tertiary times onwards, however, the climate of
central and northern Australia has been continuously hot or tropical.
We are further strengthened in our theory by the fact that the hair of
the Tasmanians is known to have been generally lighter in colour than
that of the Australians. Sydney Hickson even described the Tasmanian hair
as light golden brown in colour. Tasmania has, we know, since the later
Tertiary at all events, enjoyed a decidedly colder climate than Australia
proper.
One point remains unexplained; namely, why the occurrence of
light-coloured hair among Australian children should be geographically
restricted. Apart from the tribal groups in central Australia, which
I have mentioned, I know of no other record except one by Professor
Klaatsch from a coastal district in Queensland.
The hair of an aboriginal turns grey at a riper old age than is the case
of the European’s. It seems, moreover, that the hair of the women retains
its colour longer than that of the men.
Baldness is comparatively rare among the aborigines; only a limited
number of cases have come before the writer’s personal notice.
The old Arunndta men are very particular about their appearance. When
one is stricken with baldness, he constructs a pad, resembling a skull
cap, out of emu feathers, which he ties on top of his head with human
hair-string and wears regularly to hide the bareness of his scalp. He
refers to this feather-wig as “_memba_.” Aluridja men adopt a similar
fashion, but call the article “_lorngai_” (Plate VIII).
The men all over Australia, as a rule, can produce quite comely beards,
but the methods they adopt of dressing them vary according to locality.
In the River Murray and other southern districts, long square full-beards
were the vogue. The Yantowannta and other tribesmen of the Cooper’s
Creek and Lake Eyre region turn the point of the beard back upon itself
into a loop, and, by winding fur-string around it, keep it fixed in that
fashion (Plate VII, 2). North of the MacDonnell Ranges, and on some of
the islands off Arnhem Land, the older men keep the upper lip clean by
pulling out the hairs one by one. Along the north coast, from the Gulf of
Carpentaria to the Buccaneer Archipelago, the men over a certain age are
allowed to singe off, or shave with a sharp chip of stone or shell, the
entire beard including the upper lip. The women of the King Sound tribes
are required to help the men remove the hairs; a man will lie for hours,
with his head upon his lubra’s lap, whilst she busies herself pulling the
hairs from her husband’s chin. The old men of the Cambridge Gulf tribe
twist each end of the moustache and surround it with a cylindrical layer
of beeswax, from which the tips project on either side like the hairs of
a paint brush. The beard is divided into two equal bundles of hairs, the
ends of both of which are treated in the same way as the moustache. On
some of the islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago, the men shave the upper
portion of the moustache below the nose, leaving only a narrow fringe of
hairs, immediately above the margin of the upper lip.