650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it sometimes happened that all the army cut off their hair," we are 

 shown a step toward that propitiation by unrelated members of the 

 community at large, which, when it becomes established, is a trait of 

 religious worship. Hence certain Greek ceremonies. " The cutting 

 off of the hair, which was always done when a boy became an t(p7j(3og, 

 was a solemn act, attended with religious ceremonies. A libation was 

 first offered to Hercules, . . . and the hair after being cut off was 

 dedicated to some deity, usually a river-god." So, too, at the first 

 time of shaving among the Romans, "the hair cut off on such occa- 

 sions was consecrated to some god." 



Sacrifice of hair was an act of worship with the Hebrews also. 

 We are told of " fourscore men, having their beards shaven, and their 

 clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with offerings and incense in 

 their hand, to bring them to the house of the Lord ; " and Krehl gives 

 sundry kindred facts concerning the Arabians. 



Curious modifications of the practice occurred in Peru. Small 

 sacrifices of hair were continual. " Another offering," writes D'Acosta, 

 is " pulling out the eyelashes or eyebrows and presenting them to 

 the sun, the hills, the combles, the winds, or whatever they are in fear 

 of. . . . On entering the temples, or when they were already within 

 them, they put their hands to their eyebrows as if they would pull 

 out the hairs, and then made a motion as if they were blowing them 

 toward the idol " a good instance of the abi'idgment w T hich cere- 

 monies habitually undergo. Lastly, when, in presence of a national 

 calamity, extreme propitiation of a deity is to be made, we sometimes 

 find even the ruler sacrificing his hair. During an eruption of the 

 great volcano in Hawaii, all other offerings having failed to appease 

 the anger of the gods, " the king Kamehameha cut off part of his own 

 hair, which was considered sacred, and threw it into the torrent [of 

 lava], as the most valuable offering." 



One further development remains : this kind of sacrifice becomes 

 in some cases a social propitiation. Wreaths of their own hair plaited 

 were bestowed upon others as marks of consideration by the Tahi- 

 tians. In France, in the fifth and sixth centuries, it was usual to pluck 

 out a few hairs from the beard on approaching a superior, and pre- 

 sent them ; and this usage was occasionally adopted as a mark of con- 

 descension by a ruler, as when Clovis, gratified by the visit of the 

 Bishop of Toulouse, gave him a hair from his beard, and was imitated 

 in so doing by his followers. Afterward the usage had its meaning 

 obscured by abridgment : in the times of chivalry one mode of show- 

 ing respect was to tug at the mustache. 



Already, when treating of trophies, and when finding that those 

 of the phallic class, major and minor, had the same meanings as the 

 rest, the way was opened to explain the mutilations next to be dealt 

 with. We have seen that, when the vanquished were not killed but 



