SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS, 657 



under lip." Farther south with the Makalolo, the upper 

 lip is perforated, and a large metal and bamboo ring, called 

 apelele, is worn in the hole. " This caused the lip in one case 

 to project two inches beyond the tip of the nose; and when 

 tlie laidy smiled the contraction of the muscles elevated 

 it oyer the eyes. ^ Why do the women wear these things?' 

 the venerable chief, Chinsurdi, was asked. Evidently sur- 

 prised at such a stupid question, lie replied: ' For beauty ! 

 They are the only beautiful things women have; men have 

 beards, women have none. What kind of a person would 

 she be without the pelele? She would not be a woman at 

 all with a mouth like a man, but no beard.' "* 



Hardly any part of the body, which can be unnaturally 

 modified, has escaped. The amount of suffering thus 

 caused must have been extreme, for many of the operations 

 require several years for their completion, so that the idea 

 of their necessity must be imperative. The motives are 

 various; the men paint their bodies to make themselves 

 appear terrible in battle; certfiin 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. 

 Among savages the same fashions prevail for long periods,! 

 and thus mutilations, from whatever cause first made, soon 

 come to be valued as distinctive marks. But self-adorn- 

 ment, 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: 

 " W^e must just have 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 J says: "To have fine 

 tattoed faces was the great ambition of the young, both to 

 render themselves attractive to the ladies and conspicuous 

 in war." A star tattooed on the forehead and a spot on 



* Livingstone, "British Association," 1860; report given in the 

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



f Sir S. Baker (ibid., vol. i, p. 210) speaking of the natives of 

 Central Africa, says: " 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. 



^Rev. K. Taylor, "New Zealand and Its Inhabitants," 1855, p. 

 153. 



