Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 375

COSMETIC USED BY
WOMEN
335
one meets an acquaintance after
one always asks if it is
because he has not yet broken his fast. It would be rude
to appear before decent people with no mark whatever on
he
is
still
noon with
fasting.
If
his forehead still bare,
the forehead.
Women attach much less importance than men to this
kind of decoration. As a rule, they are satisfied with
making the little round pothi mark on the forehead in red,
yellow, or black, or else a simple horizontal or perpendicular
line in red.
But they have another kind of decoration of
which they are very fond. It consists in painting the face,
neck, arms, legs, and every part of the body that is visible
with a deep yellow cosmetic of saffron. Brahmin women
imagine that they thereby greatly enhance their beauty,
since it makes their skin appear less dusky.
Love of
admiration no doubt has taught them that this paint gives
them an additional charm in the eyes of Hindus, but it
produces quite the contrary effect on Europeans, who think
them hideous and revolting when thus besmeared.
No doubt all these daubings appear very ridiculous in
our eyes, and it is difficult to believe that it can render
any one more attractive, at least according to our way of
thinking.
But amongst the many artificial means of
adornment which caprice and fashion have forced upon us
there are several which excite just as much ridicule amongst
the Hindus. Thus, for instance, in the days when it was
the custom to powder the hair, they could not understand
how a young man with common sense could bring himself
to appear as if he had the white head of an old man.
As
to wigs, Hindus are absolutely horrified at seeing a Euro-
pean, holding some important position, with his head
dressed out in hair which may have been taken from
a leper, or a corpse, or at best from a Pariah or prostitute.
To defile one's head with anything so unclean and abomin-
able is regarded by the Hindu as most horrible
It would be
no great hardship to expose a bald head to free contact with
the air in such a warm climate, but were they all doomed
to severe colds, nothing would ever persuade the Hindus
to adopt the fashion of wearing wigs.
And so we laugh at
them, and they at us. And this is the way of the world.
!
Yae
tibi !
vae nigrae
!
dicebat cacabus ollae.