| caption: |
chapter three - the Ram or village community |
| caption: |
woman's relations with the kienga |
| caption: |
clothing of girls, and hair |
| note: |
footnotes indicated by boxes within square brackets |
| text: |
By the time she reaches the age of puberty a girl will have woven herself an unmarried girl's petticoat (ng-gieng-ni-na) whose pattern, derived from the flying swift, is also found in the characteristic body-cloth of the unmarried man. She also assumes a white cloth wrapped round the body and drawn tight under the armpits; she covers her head with a black or dark-blue cloth and never exposes her hair except when dancing. Up to the age of puberty her head is shaved, but after puberty she allows her hair to grow, cutting it to frame the face and letting it fall long behind. Some girls continue to shave their heads after puberty so that they may appear to marry young and avoid the stigma of a long stay unmarried in the leoseoki. |
