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Show ;0NE OF THE AFRICAN STYLES Dusky Damsels Adorn Themselves by Repulsively Distending Their Lips With Wooden Discs. London. Africa Is the land of many strange things and queer people, peo-ple, and not the least odd of the latter lat-ter are some of the natives living in the vicinity of Lake Chad in the central cen-tral part of that puzzling continent. As a result of his travels on the dark continent Landor has given some tine descriptions of the people and their grotesque customs. The accompanying illustration gives an excellent idea of one of these. One may be excused for not believing It to be the picture of a woman, for .here is nothing to suggest the fern- African Victim of Style. inine in this case, unless it be woman's wom-an's Inherent love of adornment. Having Hav-ing determined that elongated Hps are a thing of beauty, these dusky damsels go the limit, using wooden discs in the process of creating and maintaining this frightful, repulsive condition. "It was on the Shari river," writes Landor,, "that I found the custom of elongating the lips more exaggerated than in any other part of Africa, the women actually inserting small wooden wood-en or tin saucers in their upper lip and sometimes in both lips. It was most ludicrous to hear these young ladies talk, especially when they had two plates, one in each lip, as they clapped like castanets, and the voice became nasal and unmusical. These women were otherwise well formed anatomically and quite statuesque when young. They adorned their ankles and arms with brass rings and wore shell ornaments around the neck. The plates in the Hps were occasionally oc-casionally removed, when the upper lip hung down so low in a loop as to reach lower than the chin, leaving a repulsive aperture under the nose through which one could see the teeth." Not a very pleasant picture, truly; but style is style, and Africa is Africa. |