xx NOSE AND LIPS 321 



display of ornament, some process of boring, cutting, or 

 alteration of form being necessary to render them fit for 

 the purpose. When Captain Cook, exactly one hundred 

 years ago, was describing the naked savages of the east 

 coast of Australia, 1 he says : " Their principal ornament is 

 the bone which they thrust through the cartilage which 

 divides the nostrils from each other. What perversion of 

 taste could make them think this a decoration, or what 

 could prompt them, before they had worn it or seen it 

 worn, to suffer the pain and inconvenience that must of 

 necessity attend it, is perhaps beyond the power of human 

 sagacity to determine. As this bone is as 

 thick as a man's finger, and between five 

 and six inches long, it reaches quite across 

 the face, and so effectually stops up both 

 the nostrils that they are forced to keep 

 their mouths wide open for breath, and 

 snuffle so when they attempt to speak that 

 they are scarcely intelligible even to each 

 other. Our seamen, with some humour, 

 called it their spritsail-yard ; and indeed it 

 had so ludicrous an appearance, that till we 

 were used to it we found it difficult to FlG 15 Tortoise- 

 refrain from laughter." shell lip ornament of 



Eight years later, on his visit to the the Moskito Indians, 

 north-west coast iof America, Captain 

 Cook found precisely the same custom prevailing among the 

 natives of Prince William's Sound, whose mode of life was 

 in most other respects quite dissimilar to that of the 

 Australians, and who belong ethnologically to a totally 

 different branch of the human race. 



In 1681 Dampier 2 thus describes a custom which he 

 found existing among the natives of the Corn Islands, off 

 the Moskito Coast, in Central America : " They have a 

 fashion to cut holes in the Lips of the Boys when they 

 are young, close to their Chin, which they keep open with 

 little Pegs till they are 14 or 15 years old; then they 



1 First Voyage, vol. ii. p. 633. 



2 Voyage Hound the World, ed. 1717, vol. i. p. 32. 



Y 



