and even sometimes married women who are nursing their babies, can
really only be described as being practically naked.

Plate 13 (Figs, 1, 2, and 3) illustrates the staining and decoration
of perineal bands. [33] Fig. 1 is a section of a man's band about
6 inches wide. The transverse lines, which extend along the whole
length of the band, are in alternate groups of black and red. The
background is unevenly stained yellow behind the black lines; but the
background behind the red lines and the spaces intervening between the
groups of lines are unstained. Fig. 2 is the pattern near the end of
a woman's band about 5 inches wide. The lines are coloured red. There
is no pattern on the rest of the band; but the whole of the band,
including the background of the pattern, is stained yellow. Fig. 3 is
a section of a woman's band about 2 1/2 inches wide. The colouring
is in alternate bands of red and yellow with irregular unstained
spaces between.

I was struck with the gradual reduction of the women's dress as I
travelled from the coast, with its Roro inhabitants, through Mekeo,
and thence by Lapeka and Ido-ido to Dilava, and on by Deva-deva to
Mafulu. The petticoats of the Roro women gave way to the shorter
ones of Mekeo, and these seemed to get shorter as I went further
inland. Then at Lapeka they were still shorter. At Ido-ido, which
is Kuni, the petticoats ceased, and there was only the perineal
band. Then, again, at Dilava (still Kuni) this band was narrower,
and at Deva-deva, and finally at Mafulu, it was often, as I have said,
almost nominal.

I was told that the age at which a boy usually begins to wear his
band is about 10 or 12, or in the case of a chief's son 16 or 17;