80 MASKS AND LABRETS. 



individual rite. It may have taken its rise in the early custom of sub- 

 mitting the boy at puberty to a trial of his resolution and manly endur- 

 ance previous to his being admitted to the privileges of a member of 

 the community, including as a chief feature communal rights iu inter- 

 course with the unmarried females of the tribe. 



Tattooing is primarily a rite of this nature, beside, by its fashion, in- 

 delibly indicating the individual's particular commune in which his 

 rights might be exercised. 1 The attainment of these communal rights 

 either by desire of the individual or by the necessity arising from his 

 forced adoption by a member of the commune, whose badge he must 

 therefore be made to wear, is the object and almost the only object of 

 the tattooing to which white waifs in the South Sea Islands have occa- 

 sionally been subjected or have submitted themselves. Other explana- 

 tions have been given, chiefly through shame, but that this is the true 

 explanation I am most reliably informed. That it is not always re- 

 quired iu these days as a condition precedent to such intercourse is the 

 result of a breaking down of the aboriginal practice by civilization and 

 not necessarily to any primary difference iu the form of it. 



It is not improbable that circumcision took its rise in a similar way, 

 as up to a very recent date in the Pacific region it was an incident of 

 puberty with many tribes. lufaut circumcision would theu be a spirit- 

 ualized version, substituting the adoption into the spiritual communion 

 of the soul, considered as spiritually adult at birth, and therefore au 

 altogether later and idealized rite. 



Similar tests for endurance in youth occur among most uncivilized 

 peoples and need not be recapitulated, since every one is familiar with 

 them. 2 



1 Speaking of the tattooed lines on the chin used by all the Innuifc and many of the 

 West American coast nations from Mexico north, and which he observed at Point 

 Barrow among the Innuit, Simpson states that some undergo the operation earlier 

 than others. In connection with the fact that sexnal intercourse is forbidden to boys 

 of this region until they have killed a deer, wolf, or seal, the idea that the operation for 

 labretifery was originally a test of manhood and a passport to the good graces of the 

 girls of the tribe, gains some corroboration from the following extract, which inci- 

 dentally shows that the same proofs of prowess as a hunter were required before a 

 youth was entitled to have it performed : 



"The same irregularity exists with regard to the age at which the lip is perforated 

 for labrets in boys, who, as soon as they take a seal or kill a wolf, are entitled to have 

 the operation performed. But, in truth, no rule obtains in either case; some, led by 

 the force of example, submit to it early, and others delay it from shyness or timidity. 

 A man is met with occasionally without holes for labrets, but a woman without the 

 chin marks we have never seen." (J. Simpson on the Innuit of Point Barrow, 1. c, 

 p. 241.) See, also, apropos of tattooing, the remarks of Dr. Graeffe in Schmeltz, 

 Ethn. Abth., Mus. Godeffroy, pp. 478, 479. 



2 There seems to be something analogous iu the ceremony of incising the ears 

 among the females of the region of New Britain, though this is done before puberty. 

 However, most such customs change, in time, what were originally important feat- 

 ures of the rite. 



This wide slitting and exteusion of the ears of women, according to Kubary (ef. 



