xx LIPS 



325 



mouth, as though they wanted to contract the orifice, and 

 literally to put a curb upon its capabilities. These subsidiary 

 ornaments are not, however, found at all universally among 

 the women, and it is rare to see them all at once upon a 

 single individual ; the plug in the lower lip of the married 

 women is alone a sine grud non, serving, as it does, for an 

 artificial distinction of race." 



The slightest fold or projection of the skin furnishes an 

 excuse for boring a hole, and inserting a plug or a ring. 



I 



FIG. 17. Loobah woman. From Schweinfurth's Heart of Africa. 



There are women in the country whose bodies are pierced in 

 some way or other in little short of a hundred different places, 

 and the men are often not far behind in the profusion with 

 which this kind of adornment is carried out. 



" The whole group of the Mittoo exhibits peculiarities by 

 which it may be distinguished from its neighbours. The 

 external adornment of the body, the costume, the ornaments, 

 the mutilations which individuals undergo in short, the 

 general fashions have all a distinctive character of their 

 own. The most remarkable is the revolting, because un- 

 natural, manner in which the women pierce and distort their 

 lips ; they seem to vie with each other in their mutilation ; 



