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National Geographic : 1912 Sep
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MAKING ORNAMENTAL SCAR PATTERNS The man has just had numerous cuts made into the skin of his chest, into which dirt will be rubbed. The woman holds between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand the piece of bamboo with which she did the cutting. in this custom. Indeed, they are more feared by their Christian neighbors than are the Ilongots. HABITS OF THE NEGRITOS The Negritos are generally considered to be the true aborigines of the Philip pines, and are racially sharply distinct from the other numerous tribes of the Islands, except the Ilongots of Luzon, the Mangayans of Mindoro, and the Tagbanuas of Palawan, with whom they have intermarried to a considerable ex tent. They are of low, sometimes even dwarfish, stature, with very dark brown. or black, skins. Their heads are covered with closely curling hair and many of them have abundant woolly beards. They often have so-called "pepper-corn" hairs distributed very abundantly over their bodies. Their noses are broad and flat, their lips thick, their arms disproportion ately long. They do not tattoo their bodies, but ornament them with scar patterns, pro duced by cutting through the skin with sharp pieces of bamboo and rubbing dirt into the wounds thus formed in order to infect them and make good big scars! In this respect they differ from all other wild peoples in the Philippines and agree with the dwarfs of Africa, whose scar patterns, as shown by photographs which have been reproduced in the NATIONAL, GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, are, in some in stances at least, practically identical with those in vogue among the Philippine Negritos (see pages 838, 839). The men wear small clouts, and the women short skirts reaching from the waist to the knee. They are very fond of brightly colored cloth, scarlet being preferred, but individuals who cannot get cloth, and there are many such, use instead the so-called "bark cloth" so widely employed by inhabitants of the R85R
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