ABSTRACT
Alice Mangkatina worried about the white streak that had recently appeared in the front of her curly black hair, and asked me to send back some of ‘that stuff you white-fellas use’. She meant hair dye, and I tried to persuade her that the white lock improved rather than spoilt her looks, that some European women, and even European men too, had a lock of hair in front whitened to make them look more distinguished. It was not from vanity that Alice wanted to conceal the white streak, but because she insisted it made her into a minyma tjilpi (an old woman — ‘old’ and ‘white-haired’ mean the same in her language), and she was not yet willing to accept this change in status. Now, a few years later, Alice has assumed fully the role of older woman and is adept at guiding and counselling girls and younger women.
