EFFECTS OF ART TATTOOING. 355 



person belongs to : for the most part, the females possess 

 the greatest number of these painful ornaments *." 



In the recent voyage up the Congo, the embossed cica- 

 trices were found a very common ornament. Captain 

 TucKEY observed, on entering the river, " that all the visi- 

 tors, whether Christians or idolaters, had figures raised on 

 their skins in cicatrices f." As he proceeded further, he 

 found that " the cicatrices or ornamental marks on the 

 bodies of both men and women were much more raised than 

 in the lower part of the river. The women in particular 

 had their chest and belly, below the navel, embossed in a 

 manner that must have cost them infinite pain X-" 



The septum narium is sometimes perforated, and a piece 

 of bone or wood worn in the aperture, often of consider- 

 able magnitude. But the most singular practice is that of 

 the women on the north-west coast of America, who make 

 a large horizontal slit in the lower lip, parallel to the open- 

 ing of the lips, and penetrating into the mouth ; they wear 

 in it ornaments of different kinds, but generally oval pieces 

 of wood a little concave on the two surfaces, and grooved 

 at the edge. The smallest of these additional mouths, 

 as described by Vancouver §, was 2| inches long; the 

 largest 3^1^ inches by U. Capt. .Dixon brought home one of 

 the lip-ornaments, which measured 3^ inches by 2i. It 

 was inlaid with a small pearly shell, and surrounded with a 

 rim of copper ||. 



The natives of the neighbouring Fox Islands seem deter- 



* Account of the Native Africans ; v, i. p. 106 — 7. 



+ Narrative of an Expedition, &c. p. 80, 124. 



t Ibid. p. 182 — 3. The custom is retained by the Black Caribs in the 

 West Indies; Amic. in Journal de Physique, Aug. 1791. 



§ Voyage, v. ii. p. 280. 



II Voyage, p. 208. Also pp. 172, 186. 



Perouse, Voyage, v. 2. p. 139 and following. 



Langsdorff's Voyages and Travels, v. ii. p. 115. 



The same practice exists in the Archipdago between America and Kams- 

 chatka: Coxe's Account of the Russian Discoveries; 3d ed. pp. 34, 35, 104, 

 138, 176, 197. 



A A 2 



