In his war dress the Kikuyu, and, still more, the Masai warrior, is a striking, if not impressive, figure.
His hair and body are smeared with the red earth of his native land, compounded into a pigment
by mixture with the slimy juice of the castoroil plant, which abounds. Fantastic headdresses, some of
ostrich feathers, others of metal or leather; armlets and leglets of twisted wire; stripes of white clay
rubbed across the red pigment ; here and there an old pot-hat or some European garment, incongruously
contrasted with leopard-skins and bulls' horns; broad, painted cow-hide shields, and spears with soft iron
blades nearly four feet long, complete a grotesque and indecorous picture. Still, there is a sleek grace
about these active forms — bronze statues but for their frippery — which defeats all their own efforts to
make themselves hideous. (p. 30)
From My African Journey (1909) by Winston Churchill
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