396 



Professor Flower 



[May 7, 



that is all but horizontal ; and when the women want to drink they 

 have to elevate the upper lip with their fingers, and to pour the 

 draught into their mouth. 



Fig. 4. 



Loobah Woman ; from Schweinfurth's ' Heart of Africa.' 



*' Similar in shape is the decoration which is worn by the women 

 of Maganya ; but though it is round, it is a ring and not a flat plate ; 

 it is called ' pelele,' and has no object but to expand the upper lip. 

 Some of the Mittoo women, especially the Loobah, not content with 

 the circle or the ring, force a cone of polished quartz through the 

 lips as though they had borrowed the idea from the rhinoceros. This 

 fashion of using quartz belemnites of more than two inches long, is in 

 some instances adopted by the men." 



The traveller who has been the eye-witness of such customs may 

 well add, "Even amongst these uncultured children of nature, 

 human pride crops up amongst the fetters of fashion, which, indeed, 

 are fetters in the worst sense of the word ; for fashion in the distant 

 wilds of Africa tortures and harasses poor humanity as much as in the 

 great prison of civilization." 



It seems, indeed, a strange phenomenon that in such different 

 races, so far removed in locality, customs so singular — to our ideas so 

 revolting and unnatural, and certainly so painful and inconvenient — 

 should either have been perpetuated for an enormous lapse of time, if 

 the supposition of a common origin be entertained, or else have 

 developed themselves independently. 



These are, however, only extreme or exaggerated cases of the 

 almost universal custom of making a permanent aperture through 



