United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His shaven head was crowned with the usual isicoco, or ring, whose jetty blackness seemed to render the rich copper hue of the smooth skin even lighter, and for all clothing he wore a mútya of lion-skin and leopards' tails.
He was a tall and magnificently formed young man, who, although his breast was scarred with assegai wounds, showing that he was a warrior, had not yet attained to the honour of the "ring" of polished wax laid over strips of rush bound round with sinew and sewn to the hair, the "isicoco" which at a certain age or dignity, determined by the king, Zulus are allowed to assume.
In outward adornment their appearance differed little from that of the bulk of the Ba-gcatya. Their shaven heads were surmounted by the isicoco, or ring, exactly after the Zulu fashion, and on either side of this, but fastened so as not to interfere with it, nodded a tuft of magnificent white ostrich plumes.
After him followed the fierce-looking Mavovo and his squad of hunters, all of whom wore the "ring" or isicoco, as the Zulus call it; that is, a circle of polished black wax sewn into their short hair.
Word Of The Day