The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-12-19
HAVE HEADS
LIKE MOPS
FIJIANS GET UP THE MOST GRO
TESQUE STYLES IN HAIR DRESS
ING IMAGINABLE.

Nowhere does nature lend herself to
the grotesque as she does in the hair
of the Papuans. While it frizzes it
grows long and wiry, and radiates from
the head so as to form resemblance
to a mop. Thus far nature-but the
original genius of the Fijians comes in
here, and the effect is startling. No
one has visited Fiji in the past without
being astoniched at the fearful and
wonderful styles they affect. They are
geometrical and sculpturesque, having
all the accuracy and smoothness of a
polished marble statue; they are ar
chitectural, varying from the Gothic
to the Elizabethan they are horticul-
tural, suggesting here a crop of we'll
kept box trees; they are monumental,
pyramidal rapeZoidal-they are be-
yond description. An additional factor
in the production of the grotesque is
that the hair varies in color, as lime
varies in bleaching power Between
black and white the colors run through
blue-black and all the shades of red
and yellow. Often half the hair is red
and the other half white. A common
fashion is to leave bush of black hair
curled short on the top of the head,
and then wrap coils of plated red hair
round and round, until the wearer looks
as ferocious as that
%. wild Mogul,
With tenfold turbar round his ten
fold skull.
Another, favorite combination con-
sists Of a dense mass of black, with a
large bow of white in front-a bow
very similar to the knot on the head of
the statue of Diana or Venus. AnOth-
er custom is to have all the hair piled
in a large red roll at the back of the
m
aggravated wen. Among the noun
tain devils" of Fiji it was no uncom-
mon thing to meet a chief with a tuft
of flaming red hair on the top of his
otherwise bald head, the effect against
the setting sun being Pentecostal in the
extreme. Many of the women have
heads which looks as if they had once
been virgin bush, but now partially
cleared so that crossroads intersect,
leaving clumps here and there. Others
have left the darker underground in
tact, and have once and again spared a
tree of lighter shade to relieve the
eye. This one here looks as if she had
gone bald all over the rest of her head
through striving to perfect two tufts,
one on each temple. Yet all these are
styles which are within the grasp Of
the multitude. Men Of superior rank
employ a fashion which is above the
reach of ordinary men. The hair is
divided into locks, which are allowed to
grow out at right angles to the surface
of the skull, and then the ends are in
vaginated. so as to form a cone with
the base outwards. When a great num-
Der of these locks radiate from the
head, the accuracy of the design and
the neat way in which the cones of
pyramids fit into each other, give an
effect which is like carved and polish
ed jet, done by a master hand. Such
an effect would be impossible were it
not for the tact that Fijian hair is very
plastic in the mass, and obedient to
any arrangement on the radiating prin-
ciple.
Such is the description given by one
who claims to have visited Fiji. But
the Fiji papers assert that while it is
a good story it isn't fact.