342 SEXUAL selection: man. PartIL 



" ' things women have ; men have beards, women have 

 " ^ none. What kind of a person woukl she be without 

 " * the pelel^ ? She would not be a woman at all with a 

 " ' m.outh like a man, but no beard.' "^^ 



Hardly any part of the body, which can be unna- 

 turally modified, has escaped. The amount of suffering 

 thus caused must have been wonderfully great, for 

 many of the operations require several years for their 

 completion, so tliat the idea of their necessity must be 

 imperative. The motives are various ; the men paint 

 their bodies to make themselves appear terrible in bat- 

 tle ; certain mutilations are connected with religious 

 rites ; or they mark the age of puberty, or the rank 

 of the man, or they serve to distinguish the tribes. 

 As with savages the same fashions prevail for long 

 periods,** mutilations, from whatever cause first made, 

 soon come to be valued as distinctive marks. But 

 self-adornment, vanity, and the admiration of others, 

 seem to be the commonest motives. In regard to 

 tattooing, I was told by the missionaries in New Zealand, 

 that when they tried to persuade some girls to give up 

 the practice, they answered, " We must just iiave a few 

 " lines on our lips ; else when we grow old we shall be 

 " so very ugly." With the men of New Zealand, a most 

 capable judge *^ says, " to have fine tattooed faces was 

 " the great ambition of the young, both to render them- 

 " selves attractive to the ladies, and conspicuous in war." 

 A star tattooed on the forehead and a spot on the chin 



*^ Livingstone, ' British Association,' 1860 ; report given in the 

 ' Athenaeum,' July 7, 1860, p. 29. 



^* Sir S. Baker (ibid. vol. i. p. 210) speaking of the natives of Central 

 Africa sajs, "every tribe has a distinct and unchanging fashion for 

 " dressing the hair." See Agassiz (' Journey in Brazil,' 1868, p. 318) 

 on the invariability of the tattooing of the Amazonian Indians. 



*^ Eev. K. Taylor, ' New Zealand and its Inhabitants,' 1855, p. 152. 



