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Some hunters had a box of safety-pins. The Blacks begged for the pins, and when they were given to them theypinned them through their noses. An earring isn’t big enough for them. They make holes in their ears and holes in their lips and gradually work the holes large enough to put their whole hand through the hole. Then they put blocks of wood or something like that in the holes. Our ladies bob their hair. Their ladies arrange their hair in huge top knots and gum it up with blood.
Some white men were building a telegraph line in Africa, but as fast as they built it, the Blacks stole the wire to make bracelets, and they would completely cover their arms and legs with the wire. That showed how stylish they were and how smart and how wealthy.
You’ve probably heard of the little boy who was so sad that he went out into the garden and ate worms. Well, in some parts of Africa the people eat ants and grasshoppers, both raw and toasted, and they are not sad but glad. But there is one thing that both white and black people like—that is watermelon. Our watermelons first came from Africa.
The music the black people love best is that made by beating on a kind of drum called a tom-tom. They beat it with their hands and fists and will keep it up for hours without stopping; the thump, thump, thump and boom, boom, boom seems to charm them. The sound can often be heard for miles, and they can send a sort of wireless message in this way across country to their neighbors. A little girl writing a composition on this subject said, “You can hear them beating on their tum-turns for miles!”
