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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



them slit and stretched to such au extent that the two fists might 

 be placed in the openings. Slit ears may be of practical use. The 

 Kaffir carries his snuff-box in his ear-hole, and Captain Cook figures 

 a Mangaia Islander who carried a large knife in his right ear. 



' The Dyaks not only pull the lobes down to the shoulders, but 

 also insert a number of brass rings around the rim. One man 

 wore a large ring in each ear with smaller rings attached to it 

 from which were pendent various articles. To one ear were thus 

 attached two boar's tusks, an alligator's tooth, part of a hornbill's 



beak, three small 

 brass rings, and 

 two little bells." 

 Among the Bongo 

 we find the flesh 

 of the abdomen 

 slit for the inser- 

 tion of sticks. 



Akin to these 

 perforations are 

 the various forms 

 of filing, boring, 

 and breaking of 

 teeth. The great 

 districts for such 

 deformations to-day are Australia, Malaysia, and Africa. In times 

 gone by these were prevalent in Central America and Mexico, and 

 Hamy describes a number of varieties. In Africa a score or more 

 tribes file their teeth. With them it serves as a tribal mark. Thus 

 the Batoka knock out the upper front incisors and let the lower 

 ones grow up above the jaw. The Bongo. Kredy, Asango, and 

 others chip and file them to various forms. The most elaborate 

 designs, however, are found among the islands of the Indian 

 Archipelago, where teeth are chipped, filed, engraved, bored and 

 fitted with brass-headed brads, and dyed so that white patterns 

 appear on a black ground (Fig. 4). In these cases the decorative 

 idea is prominent, although from the fact that Dyaks, Ryangs, 

 and Batta differ in pattern and style the custom retains, even 

 here, some tribal significance. Notice the two purposes of the 

 practice (1) as tribal marks, (2) as a decoration. It should be 

 also observed that many and curious reasons are assigned for the 

 practice. The Batoka, for instance, say " they wish to resemble 

 the cow, and not the zebra." Very generally these operations, 

 like so many other mutilations, are performed as the individual 

 approaches manhood or womanhood. In Australia it is markedly 

 an initiatory practice, a recognition of the child becoming adult, 

 a reception into the tribe. 



Fig. 3. Anchorite Islanders with Slit Ears. 



