xx EARS AND TEETH 327 



who carries a large knife through a hole in the lobe of the right 

 ear. The New Zealanders of both sexes, when first visited 

 by Europeans, aU had holes bored through their ears, and 

 enlarged by stretching, and which in their domestic economy 

 answered the purpose of our pockets. Feathers, bones, sticks, 

 talc chisels and bodkins, the nails and teeth of their deceased 

 relations, the teeth of dogs, and in fact anything which they 

 could get that they thought curious or valuable, were thrust 

 through or suspended to them. The iron nails given them 

 by the English sailors were at once conveyed to these 

 miscellaneous receptacles. 1 The Zulus lately exhibited in 

 London carried their cigars in the same manner. Mr. 

 Wilfred Powell informs me that he met with a man on 

 one of the islands near New Guinea, the holes in whose ears 

 had been extended to such an extent that the lobes had been 

 converted into great pendent rings of skin, through which he 

 could easily pass his arms ! 



Among ourselves the custom of wearing earrings still 

 survives, even in the highest grades of society, although it 

 has been almost entirely abandoned by one -half of the 

 community, and in the other the perforation is reduced to 

 the smallest size compatible with the purpose of carrying the 

 ornament suspended from it. Nose-rings are not now the 

 fashion in Europe, but the extent to which they are admired 

 in the East may be judged of by the frequency with which 

 they are worn by ^he ayahs or female servants who so often 

 accompany English families returning from India. 



The teeth, although allowed by the greater part of the 

 world to retain their natural beauty and usefulness of form, 

 still offer a field for artificial alterations according to fashion, 

 which has been made use of principally in two distinct 

 regions of the world and by two distinct races. It is, of 

 course, only the front teeth, and mainly the upper incisors, 

 that are available for this purpose. Among various tribes of 

 negroes of Equatorial Africa different fashions of modifying 

 the natural form of these teeth prevail, specimens of which 

 may be found in any large collection of crania of these 

 people. One of the simplest consists of chipping and filing 



1 Cook's First Voyage, vol. iii. p. 456. 



