nasal cartilage, and the lips, aftbrcl greater facilities for the practice, and 

 have been generally adopted for the purpose. Among some African tribes, 

 the Botocudos in Brazil, the T'linkets of the northwest coast, the prehistoric 

 Aleuts, and the modern Innuit, labrets or plugs inserted into holes made for 

 the purpose in the lips, are now or have been used. In a large and very 

 ancient carved wooden button, covered with grotesque heads, and which a 

 friend purchased with some other antiquities in Japan, is one head which 

 lias two ivory labrets inserted j^recisely as is now the custom near the 

 eastern shore of Bering Strait. The face upon which these are placed is, 

 however, of Tartar features, and bears no resemblance to any Orarian or 

 Indian tribe. It is, therefore, not impossible that a similar custom Avas 

 once established on the Asiatic coasts. A great variety exists, hoAvever, in 

 regard to this usage. Among the Botocudos, a large wooden plug is 

 Inserted into the lower lip, and one in the lobe of each ear, with women, 

 stretching these members prodigiously, and affording a horad spectacle. 

 The T'linket women have a similar but smaller labret, but place little tufts 

 of wool, fur, or short strings of beads in successive small punctures around 

 the penphery of the external ear. The western Innuit have two labrets, 

 worn only by males, one below each corner of the mouth, and of more 

 moderate size. The women have ear-rings made of bone, and often rather 

 prettily carved. The Magemuts of Cape Romanzoff and Nunivak foi-m 

 an exception to this rule, however, as among them the women also wear 

 peculiar labrets of a C or J shape, sometimes two and sometimes more, in 

 the lower lip, wdience they project like little horns. The Norton Sound 

 Innuit women used to wear an ornament through the nasal cartilage, but 

 this practice is nearly extinct. The Eskimo of the west shore of Bering 

 Strait are said to wear no labi'ets, and my experience agrees with this state- 

 ment. The ancient j^eople of Kadiak and the Aleutian Islands also knew 

 this custom. Cook figures a cleat-shaped labret as worn very rarely by 

 the men in a hole in the middle line of the under lip, and what appear to 

 be a pair of small curved labrets like those of the IVIagemut Innuit, which 

 he states were universally worn by the women. He also speaks of their 

 piercing the upper lip below each nostril, and wearing small beads or 

 rounded labrets in tlie apertures. They also wore a string of beads in the 



