Ethnography of Micronesia. 89 



ceremony. The former is performed in the same manner as is 

 common among other races, while the latter consists in cutting 

 open the urethra with a sharp stone implement. Boys must under- 

 go this cruel operation at the age of puberty, and girls also must 

 go through the corresponding operation. These operations entitle 

 them to marriage and other rights. 



As regards, however, the purpose of this horrible practice, the 

 natives themselves are quite in the dark. The " terrible rite " 

 as mentioned in " The Australian Race " of Edward M. Curr,^ 

 published some thirty years ago, is an operation coming under 

 the head of sub-incision. According to this author, it is practised 

 for the purpose of diminishing the procreative power, but the 

 recent researches of Spencer and Gillen show that it forms one of 

 the chief features of the initiation ceremony, as already noted in 

 this paper. It seems sufficiently certain that the practice is 

 neither for the prevention of the increase of population nor for 

 the regulation of food supply, though its positive meaning is un- 

 known. Tliis view becomes stronger, when one considers that 

 among some tribes infanticide prevails and also the belief, noted 

 by Spencer, Gillen and Roth, that the birth of a child is the direct 

 result of the entrance of the ancestral spirit into the mother 

 tlirough her navel, the spirit being imagined as a minute substance 

 the size of a small grain of sand. In other words, they have no 

 idea of the association between p-rocreation and sexual intercourse.^ 

 At any rate, savages may destroy part of their genital organs to 

 display the courage necessary in grown-up men, but not to prevent 

 pregnancy as supposed by civilized peoples. It is thus probable that 



1 E. M. Curr, " The Aitstralian Race," Melbome & London, 1886-1887, Vol. I, p. 74. 



2 B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, " The Elative Tribes of Central Axistraha," Chapter VII. and 

 " The Northern Tribes of Central Australia," Chapter XL W, E Roth, " Superstition, Magic, 

 and Medicine," North Queensland Ethnography : Bulletin No. 5, Brisbane, 1903, pp. 22, 23. 



