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A GAME OF POLO.
Let us now notice how the outward form of a
Japanese maiden assumes that of a Japanese matron.
First, then, the maiden wears a high coiffure
that always serves as a sacred symbol of her virginity.
It is not easy to describe its form, but we
think it
very beautiful, and will regret the day when
the Japanese musume wears her hair like her sisters
across the ocean. The shimada, or virginal coiffure,
however, is changed after marriage and Kiku, like
;
the rest of her wedded friends, now wore the maru^may6,
or half-moon-shaped chignon, which is wound
round an ivory, tortoise-shell, or coral-tipped bar,
and is the distinguishing mark of a Japanese wife.
So far, however, the transition from loveliness to
ugliness has not been very startling; Kiku still
looked pretty. The second process, however, robbed
her of her eyebrows and left her bereft of those dark
arches that had helped to make the radiant sun of
her once maidenly beauty. With tweezers and razor
the fell work, after many a wince, was done. With
denuded brows and changed coiffure surely the Japanese
god of fashion demands no more sacrifices at his
shrine? Surely Kiku can still keep the treasures
of a set of teeth that seem like a casket of pearls
with borders of coral ?
Not so. The custom of all
good society from remotest
antiquity demands that the teeth of a wife
must be dyed black. Kiku joyfully applied the
galls and iron, and by patience and dint of polish-
and as
ing soon had a set of teeth as black as jet
polished. Not strange to tell to a Japanese either,