Javan Dancers at Their Toilet.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 406, 28 September 1889, Page 4

Jav an Dancers at Their Toilet.

M. Marcel Ed ant has jusb communicated to a French paper an account of how ho witnessed the toilet of tho dancing girls in the Javan village established in Paris. Our dancers, lie bays, ri.-e at the hour when the Exhibition opens. If you pa&s just then beioie one ot their huts you learn that they are awake irom a medley ot eongs, cries, and lively conversation which is heard all over the village. Thet>on«s and the t>houts are alike uuintelligiDie, bub they are droll, and they say plainly enough that they come iiom women in a gay mood. In a little wiiile one ot the dancers makes her appearance at the door oi the cottage and casts her eye over the v Kampong.' Ib is almost deseited, tlieie being only five or six visitors. I hide as well as I can behind a tree and look on with attention. As the girl remains ior some time I walk foiwaru. yho is in a pietty morning iwjhyt ; little sandals on her feet, a short blue bkiit, and blue bodice. She smiles as 1 come forward ; then, with a salute, disappears into the house. Soon alter four dancers come out. They carry a table covered with fantastic objects — boxes of every colour, curling tongs, phials, pobs, etc., their costume being in every case thab described above. They pay no more attention to me than if I did not exist. Very leiguroiy they dispose in order all the varioua objects on the table, then all together, tianquil, smiling, and smoking long cigais, they unknob thoir black and shining hair. Their arras, necks, the upper portion of their chests, and legs are already tinted with saffron, thanks to which their colour, formerly of a disagreeable duskiness, has taken a boautiful shade. In a tew minutes they begin to sorb their hair in brushes dipped in china-ink, and '< then fasten thoir locks prettily on the back. That done, they tako a mirror and proceed to the painting of their face. While this is going on it is most amusing to watch the grimaces and the poses of the younsr ! beauties. They admire bhmselves for a long time before the mirror, laughing, bending, rising, going through a thousand gestures all the time their toilet is proceeding. On the table we distinguish pobs of colour, a cup full of starch water,a flagon of tincture ot saffron, a saucer on which is spread china ink, and a charred stick. With their lingers steeped in the various in- ! gradients, the Javanese dancers place on the skin of tho face a kind of sub-tint, and then they place a coating of china ink on the forehead, on the temples, and un the cheeks in front of the ears. The china ink I is put on in a line bo the corner of the eye brows, and resembles a long piece of lightly curled hair. The eyelashes are a peculiar care. The Javanese try to exaggerate the ! characteristics o? tho Mongol type by the manipulation of their eyes. Twenty times they move their tongs, steeped in china ink, over their eyelashes from one side to another before tracing the long and well marked line which gives the desired expression. The toilet is now nearing completion. After going through a few more gestures and po-ca they take anew tho mirror, and place delicately on tho forehoad beyond tho root ot tho hoko a little black spot. The laughter becomes louder, the songs less monotonous, the gestures more lively. The toilet is finished.