x ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS 129 



ebony or wood two to three inches in diameter. Some 

 of the women wear a metal pin or peg in the lower lip. 

 This wooden plug is daily whitened with carefully 

 washed kaolin. The girl's lip is usually pierced by her 

 maternal uncle ; the mother is responsible for main- 

 taining and enlarging the hole. The day is kept as a 

 festival when the first solid plug is inserted, and a 

 husband cuts a new pelele for his wife. When a girl 

 with a labret chatters freely the eye can scarcely follow 

 the motion of the disc, and when she laughs the comic 

 effect is indescribable. Livingstone mentions the pelele* 

 as being worn by women on the Zambesi (1856). 

 Sekwebu, his faithful guide, remarked, " These women 

 want to make their mouths like those of ducks." Sub- 

 sequently, in the Rovuma valley he saw men as well 

 as women wearing the pelele, and noticed that in some 

 cases its pressure on the upper gum and front teeth 

 caused an alteration in their natural curve, for the 

 teeth and the bone in which they were implanted 

 curved inward instead of outward. 



Schweinfurth states that the labrets among the 

 Mittoo women are made of ivory, ebony, or quartz. 

 AY hen drinking, the women raise the upper lip with 

 the finger. In some of the Suk people, the lower lip 

 is pierced and in the hole a bird or porcupine quill is 

 inserted ; sometimes a piece of brass or a tooth. The 

 natives in some parts of South America known as the 

 Botocudos wear solid lip ornaments, and their name is 

 derived from this habit, for the Portuguese word 

 botoque means a plug. 



The most extraordinary form of labret found in East 

 Africa occurs among the women of the Murle tribe 

 living near Lake Stefanie. A hole is bored through 



O O 



the lower lip, and this hole is gradually enlarged 

 until a piece of ox-horn three to three and a half 

 inches thick, and three inches long, can be inserted. 

 The two openings in the piece of horn are plugged with 

 wood. The mouth by this means is kept open arid as 



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