646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from the jaws as trophies without seriously decreasing the usefulness 

 of the prisoner. Hence another form of mutilation. 



We have seen that teeth are worn as trophies in Ashantee and in 

 South America. Now, if teeth are taken as trophies from captives 

 who are preserved as slaves, loss of them must become a mark of 

 subjection. Of facts directly showing that a propitiatory ceremony 

 hence arises I can name but one. Among mutilations submitted to 

 on the death of a king or chief in the Sandwich Islands, Ellis names 

 knocking out one of the front teeth ; an alternative being cutting the 

 ears. The implication is tolerably clear ; and when we further read 

 in Cook that the Sandwich-Islanders knock out from one to four of 

 the front teeth when we see that the wdiole population becomes 

 marked by these repeated mutilations undergone to propitiate the 

 ghosts of dead rulers when we infer that in propitiation of a much- 

 dreaded ruler deified after death, not only those who knew him may 

 submit to this loss, but also their children subsequently born we see 

 how the practice, becoming established, may survive as a sacred cus- 

 tom when its meaning is lost. For, concluding that the practice has 

 this sacramental nature, there are the further reasons derived from 

 the fixing of the age for the operation, and from the character of the 

 operator. Angas tells us that in New South Wales it is the Koradger 

 men or priests who perform the ceremony of knocking out the teeth ; 

 and of a semi-domesticated Australian Haygarth writes that he said 

 one day, "with a look of importance, that he must go away for a few 

 days, as he had grown up to man's estate, and 'it was high time that 

 he should have his teeth knocked out.' " Various African races, as the 

 Batoka, the Dor, etc., similarly lose two or more of their front teeth ; 

 and habitually the loss of them is an obligatory rite. But the best 

 evidence (which I have found since setting down the above) is fur- 

 nished by the ancient Peruvians. A tradition among certain of them 

 was that the conqueror Huayna Ccapac, finding them disobedient, 

 " made a law that they and their descendants should have three of 

 their front teeth pulled out in each jaw." Another tradition, given 

 by Cieza, naturally derivable from the last, was that this pulling out 

 of teeth by fathers from their young children was "a service very 

 acceptable to their gods." And then, as happens with other mutila- 

 tions of which the meaning has dropped out of memory, the improve- 

 ment of the appearance was in some parts the assigned motive. 



It should be added that, in this case as in most cases, the muti- 

 lation assumes modified forms. "The Damaras knock "out a wedge- 

 shaped gap between their two front teeth;" "the natives in the 

 neighborhood of Sierra Leone file or chip the teeth;" and various 

 other tribes have allied usages. 



As the transition from eating conquered enemies to making slaves 

 of them mitigates trophy-taking so as to avoid causing death ; and, 



