Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-01-21
FATHER JUT-TOOTH.

FATHER JUT-TOOTH is a droll fellow
who lives in the land where the goats
climb trees. He dresses in a thick suit
Of ashes, carries his tobacco behind his
ears, and for ornament wears the tail of
a cow.
His wife wears an apron of skin with
a fringe of iron rings and beads and
bells; and the largest house in the VII
lage is a hospital for COWS.
Queer people, did you say? Yes, they
are queer, must admit; and it would
be hard to believe what we hear of
them only that travellers have seen them
and written books about them.
But let me tell you more. He is
called Father Jut-Tooth by the Nubians
because of a singular custom his people
have of breaking off or filing to point
the two lower front teeth, thus leaving
the upper ones to grow out till they are
very prominent. Why they should think
this an Improvement upon Natures way
of arranging teeth nobody knows; but
their fathers set the fashion and they
dutifully follow it. And let me tell you
that the most savage tribes in Africa are
as much slaves to fashion as we; and it
is even worse with them because the
fashion is not simply the cut of clothes
but mutilation of the body, breaking of
teeth, pressing heads out of shape,
stretching the lips till they look like a
ducks bill, tattooing new patterns in
the skin and boring holes through the
flesh.
Father Jut-Tooth dresses in a suit of
ashes, as | said, AMI rubs it we'll in, so
that if he is poor man, and obliged to
use wood ashes, he is changed from his
native bronze color to a fine gray; but
if he be rich and can afford the luxury
of more expensive sort of ashes he
will be rusty red. The use of the
ashes is to keep off insects, and for the
same purpose he sleeps in bed of the
same ashes.
His faYorite ornament, [ told you, is
the tail of a cow but he does not disdain
other tails, such as goats, and the chief
of his tribe has quite an assortment of
tails with which to vary his dress
Then, like all other Africans, he has
his ears pierced in several places, and
iron rings or bars put in. And, worse
than that, his upper lip is pierced, an
iron bar fitted in, and, as you'll not be
surprised to know, he is tatooed in
stripes like the rays of the sun, going from
the top of his nose across his forehead
and temples.
But this singular gentleman is not yet
fully dressed, He has ivory rings on the
upper part of his arms, and, if he is rich,
iron rings or bracelets from elbow to
wrist, besides immense iron chains, some
times as many as four around his neck,
and fastened on, too, so that they cannot
be taken off.
His hair is probably shaved close to
his head, though a traveller tells Of one
dandy who had thin hair about six
inches long, which he mad trained with
great care till it stood up all over his
head in locks and pointed like tongues
of flame. The peculiar material which
he used on it had dyed it of rusty red
color, and the observer frankly says he
looked like iend.
AS for clothes, the less said of them
the better. He calls a man who
wears garments woman, and the Ger
man traveler-who of course was fully
dressed-received the ironical name of
the " Turkish Lady"
This man is Dinka, and the dress of
his wife is about as droll as his To be-
gin with, she nearly equals him in iron
rings and chains. Her ears and lips
and nose are as fully decorated as their
limited size will allow. Her neck bears
chains of iron beads shaped like gas pipe
cut into bits, strings of wooden balls,
cords of leather, among the rest. prob
ably, an amulet to keep her from harm,
made of some verses of the Kohran, in
closed in an ornamental leather sheath.
This amulet, by the way, she shares with