DAU - 1 LABRETIFERY. 87 



Parana, whose headwaters come near to draining the Botokudo terri- 

 tory. If the progenitors of these people were wanderers from the Pa- 

 cific coast the road was ready made for them. At all events, we know 

 that the practice was once widely spread through Brazil, and if it orig- 

 inated on the western coast, once past the barriers of the Andes, there 

 was no reason why it might not have spread all over South America. 



Northward from Mexico, beginning with the people of the Columbian 

 Archipelago, and continuing along the coast and islands peopled by the 

 diverse races of Tlinkit, Aleut, Tinneh, snd Innuit, there is no inter- 

 ruption of the chain of labretifera until Bering Sea and Strait are 

 reached on the west and the icy desert between the Colville and the 

 Mackenzie on the east. 



Utterly unknown in Northeastern Asia, and carried to its highest de- 

 velopment only in Middle America by the most cultured American 

 aborigines known to history; spread on a geographical line along two 

 continents; characteristic of the most absolutely diverse American eth- 

 nic stocks along that line ; unknown in North America among their kin- 

 dred away from that line; it seems certain that the fashion spread from 

 the south rather than from the north and west. That it was an acci- 

 dental coincidence of identical inventions, due to a particular stage of 

 progress reached independently by different peoples, it seems to me is 

 simply inconceivable. If so, why did not kindred tribes of these same 

 stocks develop the custom in Middle and Eastern North America'? 



A few words will formulate what we know about labretifery northward 

 from Puget Sound : 



All the married women (of Port Bucareli) had a large opening in the lower lip, and 

 this opening is filled by a piece of wood cut into an oval, of which the smaller diam- 

 eter is almost an inch. The older the woman the larger is the ornament, which ren- 

 ders them frightful, above all, the old women, whose lip, deprived of its elasticity 

 and under the weight of this decoration, hangs down in a very disagreeable way. 

 The girls wear only a copper needle which pierces the lip in the spot which the orna- 

 ment is destined to occupy. (Voyage of Maurelle in the Princesa in 1779; translated 

 in the voyage of La Peronse, vol. 1, pp. 330, 331.) 



Among the Sitka Tlinkit, says Lisianski: 



A strange custom prevails respecting the female sex. Wheu the event takes place 

 that implies womauhood, they are obliged to submit to have the lower lip cut and to 

 have a piece of wood, scooped out like a spoon, fixed in the incision. As the young 

 woman grows up the incision is gradually enlarged, by larger pieces of wood being 

 put into it, so that the lip at last projects at least four inches, and extends from side to 

 side to six inches. Though this disfiguring of the face rendered to our eyes the hand- 

 somest woman frightful, it is considered here as a mark of the highest dignity, and 

 held in such esteem that the women of consequence strive to bring their lips to as 

 large a size as possible. The piece of wood is so inconveniently placed that the wearer 

 «an neither eat nor drink without extreme difficulty, and she is obliged to be con- 

 stantly on the watch lest it should fall out, which would cover her with confusion. 

 (Lisianski's Voyage. 4°. London, Booth, 1814, pp. 243, 244.) 



On p. 255, however, he speaks of a Sitkan child three months old 

 which had the lower lip pierced. The larger plug was inserted at ma- 

 turity. 



