1880.] on Fashion in Befiirmiiy. 395 



" Tlic Bongo women (says SclnvciDfurth*) delight in distinguishing 

 themselves by an adornment which to our notion is nothing less than 

 a hideous mutilation. As soon as a woman is married, the ojieration 

 commences of extending her lower lip. This, at first only slightly 

 bored, is widened by inserting into the orifice plugs of wood, gradually 

 increasing in size, until at length the entire feature is enlarged to 

 five or six times its original proportions. The plugs are cylindrical 

 in form, not less than an inch tliick, and arc exactly like the pegs of 

 bone or wood worn by the women of Musgoo. By this means the 

 lower lip is extended horizontally till it projects far beyond the 

 upper, which is also bored and fitted with a copper plate or nail, and 

 now and then by a little ring, and sometimes by a bit of straw, about 

 as thick as a lucifer-match. Nor do they leave the nose intact ; 

 similar bits of straw are inserted into the edges of the nostrils, and I 

 have seen as many as three of these on each side. A very favoui'ite 

 ornament for the cartilage between the nostrils is a copper ring, just 

 like those that are jilaced in the noses of buffaloes and other beasts of 

 burden for the purpose of rendering them more tractable. The 

 greatest coquettes among the ladies wear a clasp, or cramp, at the 

 corners of the mouth, as though they wanted to contract the orifice, 

 and literally to put a curb upon its capabilities. These subsidiary 

 ornaments are not, however, found at all universally among the 

 women, and it is rare to see them all at once upon a single individual ; 

 the plug in the lower lip of the married women is alone a sine qua non^ 

 serving as it does, for an artificial distinction of race." 



The slightest fold or projection of the skin furnishes an excuse 

 for boring a hole, and inserting a plug or a ring. There are women 

 in the country whose bodies are pierced in some way or other in little 

 short of a hundred different places, and the men are often not far 

 behind in the profusion with which this kind of adornment is carried 

 out. 



" The whole group of the Mittoo exhibits peculiarities by which 

 it may be distinguished from its neighbours. The external adorn- 

 ment of the body, the costume, the ornaments, the mutilations which 

 individuals undergo — in short, tlie general fashions — have all a dis- 

 tinctive character of their own. The most remarkable is the revolting, 

 because unnatural, manner in which the women pierce and distort 

 their lips ; they seem to vie with each other in their mutilations, and 

 their vanity in this re^^pect, I believe, surpasses anything that may be 

 found throughout Africa. Not satisfied with piercing the lower lip, 

 they drag out the upper lip as well for the sake of symmetry.f .... 

 Circular plates, nearly as large as a crown piece, made variously of 

 quartz, of ivory, or of horn, are inserted into the lips that have been 

 stretched by the growth of years, and then often bent in a position 



* ' Heart of Africa,' vol. i. p. 297. 



t The mutilation of both lips was also obsei-ved by Rohlfs among the women 

 of Kadje, in Segseg, between Lake Tsad and the Benwc. 



