DISFIGURING OF THE HUMAN BODY. 



147 



fiigiously widen the holes in their ears, that a 

 man s hand may be thrust th ough them. Hence, 

 the ears of these people often descend to the 

 tops of their shoulders.* Gentil assures us, 

 that the women, in the northern parts of China, 

 employ every art in order to diminish their eyes. 

 For this purpose, the girls, instructed by their 

 mothers, extend their eye-lids continually, with 

 the view of making their eyes oblong and small. 

 These properties, in the estimation of tho Chi 

 nese, when joined to aflat nose, and large, open, 

 pendulous ears, constitute the perfection of beau 

 ty. We are informed by Struys, that the wo 

 men of Siam wear so large and heavy pendants 

 in their ears, that the holes gradually become 

 wide enough to admit a man s thumb. The na 

 tives of New Holland pull out the two fore-teeth 

 of the upper jaw. In Calicut, there is a band 

 of nobles called iVewrcs, who lengthen their ears 

 to such a degree, that they hang down to their 

 shoulders, and sometimes even lower. f The 

 Arabs paint their lips, arms, and the most con 

 spicuous parts of their bodies, with a deep blue 

 colour. This paint, which they lay on in little 

 dots, and make it penetrate the flesh, by punc 

 turing the skin with needles, can never be effac 

 ed. Some of the Asiatics paint their eye-brows 

 of a black colour, and others eradicate the hairs 

 with rusma, and paint artificial eye-brows, in the 

 form of a black crescent, which gives them an 

 uncommon and ugly appearance. The inhabi 

 tants of Prince William s Sound, paint their 

 fanes and hands, bore their ears and noses, and 

 slit their under lips. In the holes made in their 

 noses, they hang pieces of bone or ivory, which 

 are often two or three inches long ; and, in the 

 slit of the lip, they place a bone or ivory instru 

 ment with holes in it, from which they suspend 

 beads that reach below the chin. These holes 

 in the lip disfigure them greatly, for some of them 

 are as large as their mouths.J 



Such distortions of the beautiful structure of the 

 human frame, are not peculiar to the savage tribes 

 of the human race, but are practised by nations 

 which have made considerable advances in sci 

 ence and civilization. It is well known that, in 

 China, a ridiculous custom prevails, of rendering 

 the feet of their females so small, that they can 

 with difficulty support their bodies. This is 

 deemed a principal part of their beauty ; and no 

 swathing nor compression is omitted, when they 

 are young, to give them this fancied accomplish 

 ment. Every woman of fashion, and every wo 

 man who wishes to be reckoned handsome, must 

 have her feet so small, that they could easily 

 enter the shoe of a child of six years of age. 

 The great toe is the only one left to act with 

 reedom ; the rest are doubled down under the 

 loot, in their tenderest infancy, and restrained by 



Smellie s Philosophy of Natural History, vol. II. 

 livid. I Portlock s Voyage round the World. 



tight bandages, till they unite with, and are bu 

 ried in the sole. I have inspected a model of a 

 Chinese lady s foot, exactly of this description, 

 which, I was assured, was taken from life. The 

 length was only two inches and three-fourths ; 

 the breadth of the base of the heel, seven eighths 

 of an inch ; the breadth of the broadest part ol 

 the foot, one and one fourth of an inch ; and the 

 diameter of the ankle, three inches above the 

 heel, one and seven eighths of an inch. With 

 feet of this description the Chinese ladies may 

 be said rather to totter than to walk ; and, by 

 such practices, they evidently frustrate the be 

 nevolent intentions of the Creator, and put them 

 selves to unnecessary inconvenience and pain. 

 Yet such is the powerful influence of fashion, 

 however absurd and ridiculous, that women of 

 the middling and inferior classes frequently suf 

 fer their feet to be thus maimed and distorted, 

 in order to ape the unnatural customs of their 

 superiors. 



We have every reason to believe that the 

 harsh and ugly features, and the ferocious as 

 pect, by which numerous tribes of mankind are 

 distinguished, are owing to such voluntary dis 

 tortions of the human frame, and to the filthy and 

 abominable practices in which they indulge. 

 Father Tertre assures us, that the flat noses of 

 the negroes are occasioned by a general practice 

 of mothers, who depress the noses of their new 

 born infants, and squeeze their lips, in order to 

 thicken them ; and that those children who es 

 cape these operations have elevated noses, thin 

 lips, and fine features. It is somewhat unac 

 countable, and it shows the perversity of tho 

 human mind, in its present degraded state, that 

 such practices should be so general, and so obsti 

 nately persisted in, when we consider the pain 

 and inconvenience with which they are attended. 

 To pull the hairs of the chin or eye-brows 

 from the roots ; to slit the under lip, till the inci 

 sion be as large as one s mouth ; to pierce the 

 nostrils, till a bone as large as a man s finger 

 can be thurst through them; and to. cover the 

 body with black streaks, which make the blood 

 to flow at every stroke of the instrument by which 

 they are produced, must be attended with excru 

 ciating pain. Sir Joseph Banks, who accompa 

 nied Captain Cook in his first voyage, was pre 

 sent, in the island of Otaheite, at the operation 

 of tattooing, performed on the back of a girl o. 

 thirteen years of age. The instrument used had 

 twenty teeth ; and at each stroke, which was re 

 peated every moment, issued an ichor or serum, 

 tinged with blood. The girl bore the pain with 

 great resolution, for some minutes, till, at length, 

 it became so intolerable, that she burst out into 

 violent exclamations ; but the operator, notwith 

 standing the most earnest entreaties to desist, 

 was inexorable, while two women, who attended 

 upon the occasion, both chid and beat her for 

 struggling. 



