The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1888-07-20
DECKING OF THE HEAD AND DRAP-
ING OF THE FACE.

The MaIe Savage's Love Of Personal Or
MISUNDERSTANDING Artistic Taste.
Masculine Attire in the AIlddl Ages.
Boots, Gloves and High Hat.
The head has always been the test Of taste.
In civilized countries, where tailordom OBJ
tains and millinery means more than a
length Of fringe and a string Of beads, sleeves
have run the heads hard, and skirts have
made a good third Shoes, too, have not
t,een out Of it, and ornamentation has been
as a congerles Of minor little imps frisking
about the bigger competitors for the wreath
OF mingled feathers, fobers, lace and jewels,
made and offered by the genius of bad taste.
From the earliest times when man first
finds that he has hands and can use them he
the decking of his head and the draping of
his face. Now he twists his hair nto mon
strous shapes, standing out from his scalp
like a hunchbacked a%ureole; now he contents
himself with a more symmetrical nimbus,
yond the breadth of his shoulders. Anon he
sticks a few feathers among the clay daubed
mass, and amor he lets it hang down in
greasy elf locks to his neck, taking care,
however, to travesty the natural shape of his
head by fillets, which bind on to it every kind
Of frightful and ungainly excrescence; or he
paints his face in patterns Of red and yellow
and blue; or makes that painting permanent
with tattooing needles and indigo; or he
hangs heavy weights in his ears; or destroys
the shapo of his under lip; or does something
insane with his teeth;'or in some way dstorts
and d%isigures himself under the name of or
namentation and with tic idea of making
himself a very smart fellow indeed.
In savage life it is the brave who thus
smartens himself up with most intention.
Tue squaw follows humbly at a distance,
walking on the same road, but in a narrower
groove, and with more modest mien. The
brave is the one who is zen evidence;;' the
squaw has simply to work for his comfort
and bear children to keep the tribe alive.
But he must strike terror into the hearts Of
his enemies, as we'll as make himself an object
Of admiration to the docile females, who &C.
cept him at his own valuation, and are wooed
exactly as birds and beasts are wooed-one
part by the display of masculine charms,
another part taken by force. Hence he
pranks himself out in paint and feathers-in
the teeth and claws and skins Of the wild
beasts he has overcome-in the scalps Of the
enemies he has slain-in this rude attempt to
express q dawning artistic sense, and that
botch at ornamentation which is disfgure-
ment and not Embellishments this way and
that he makes himself a love worthy object
to the girls Of his tribe; a model to be here
after initiated to the boys; q terror to his
foes who count his deeds of proves by his
questionable trophies; and something I'M
measurably hideous and disgusting to all
civilized folk with whom he comes in contact.
This lavish personal establishment of the
male savage continued far into the days OF
civilization. When the middle e e were
the wadge between classic times and modern
days we had mail clad nights with plumes OF
portentous size and sweep, or close fitting
akin dresses left nothing to be desired in the
way Of simple and something in the way
OF modestv, wline the modicum Of human
force, which can never be got rid of, ex-
pressed Itself in parti colored legs, and shoes
that were surely the design Of some maniac
at large. Hats and cloaks and purified
breeches-points and tags and lace frills at
the wrists and knees-boots which would
have carried a small child in the upper gap
curlef wigs that were intrinsically as ugly
as q Zhlu's clay danbed NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
that came nearly to the massachusetts too
tight for practicable ~sitting-every kind Of
absurdity wnlcn bad taste could invent aud
folly consent to wear, have we poor silly
humans undergone in our zeal for fashionable
martyrdom; and only quite Of late years has
the masculine common Vonse declared itself
once for all in favor Of simplicity and demo-
cratic unity, and a costume that is useful
and possible to all alike.
But even now our exquisites torture them
selves in tight boots and tighter gloves, as
we'll as in guillotine collars; while that per-
ennial high hat, which will not fade down to
its roots whatever the cold blast of criticism
may blow on it. Is the true survival of the
savage's wondrous headgear. Which brings
US round to the point of our paper-the test
Of the head-that last stronghold of bad
taste and folly-that stumbling block Of the
sesthetically weak. Here we have Il still in
force. With the comfortable, useful, unfne,
and national body clothing OF
men, we ave still this remnant of barbarism
this reminder Of the time when the men of
the world made their hair into h%unchback
aureole., wore feathers such as we see in
Albert Durer, or full bottomed wigs rs in
TIE time Of Queen Anne and the first tnreo
Georges Of England, and wrecked themselves
on this fatal rock which is to good taste what
Sinbad's island Of loadstone was to all the
ships that sailed thereby.-New York Home
Journal