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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



very smooth and round, so that the ear seems to be all wood, with 

 a little skin around it." 



In ancient Mexico labrets were worn, and very pretty little 

 ones made of black obsidian and finely polished are not uncom- 

 mon. These are shaped like a stove-pipe hat, the brim being 

 placed between the lip and the lower teeth, and the crown project- 

 ing from the middle of the chin. Such labrets, although usually 

 of obsidian, are sometimes of jade, and were occasionally of large 

 size. Curiously enough, this same style of lip-plug is found 

 among the western Eskimos. Within a century the custom of 

 piercing the lips for labrets was prevalent in Alaska and British 

 'Columbia. The ornaments were sometimes three inches long by 

 one and a half wide, of an oval form, and hollowed into troughs 

 above and below. In fact, it is said that the Ahts took out the 

 labret and used it as a spoon in eating hot soups, etc. Among the 

 Tlingits of Alaska the women only wore labrets. The girl's lip 

 was pierced as she approached womanhood, and a very small peg 

 inserted in the opening. This hole was enlarged by the insertion 

 from time to time of ever larger labrets. Only women of great 

 age and high position wore the largest ones. The practice is now 

 falling into disuse, and large labrets are almost a thing of the 

 past. Small pegs of silver are the customary form at present. 



In Africa labretifery is quite as 

 common, and varies from tribe 

 to tribe. The Loobah wear a 

 polished cone of quartz, some 

 worn by men being even two 

 inches in length. Mittoo women 

 wear circular plates (Fig. 1) ; the 

 Bongo wear plugs in both upper 

 and lower lips, and seem to de- 

 light in the noise made by the 

 ornaments striking together. 

 Schweinfurth, from whom most 

 of these African examples are 

 taken, says these same Bongo 

 women wear bits of straw in 

 holes at the edges of the nos- 

 trils, a clamp at the corner of 

 the mouth, and numerous little 

 their ears. " Some of the women have the body 

 pierced in little less than a hundred places." Nuehr women 

 wear in the upper lip a small ornament of iron wire covered 

 with beads, which at a little distance looks like a cigarette in 

 the mouth. Yet more curious is the pelele worn by the Man- 

 ganya women (Fig. 2). It is a ring, made of metal, ivory, or 



Fiu. 1. African wearing Lip Ornaments. 



iron rings m 



