USE OF OBSIDIAN. 337 



The woman of last night, occupied part of my 

 hut again to-day. In the afternoon I amused 

 myself copying into my note-book the muslin sprig 

 pattern incised upon the skin of her body ; in front 

 from the neck over her breasts to the waist, and on 

 her back from the shoulders to the hips. She 

 seemed proud of the attention this savage kind of 

 ornament attracted, and was very particular in 

 showing me how it was performed. Going out of 

 the hut, she soon came back with a piece of 

 obsidian or volcanic glass, she had found among 

 the sand. From this, the rough blow of another 

 stone splintered off a scale-like fragment, sharp as 

 a razor, and which she proved to me could shave 

 off the hair if required. With this the strange 

 operation of ornamenting the girls' skins is per- 

 formed when they are quite young, and it is also 

 used to cut the " arriah," or tribe-symbol, upon the 

 breasts or shoulders of the boys. As I looked at 

 the rude instrument, my mind reverted to the 

 fourth chapter of Exodus, where we are told, "Then 

 Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the fore- 

 skin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, 

 Surely a bloody husband art thou to me." Before 

 this, I had no idea in what manner, the circum- 

 cision of the son of Moses could have been effected, 

 for although stone instruments, to separate large 

 substances, were general in the early history of man, 

 it appears difficult to conceive how the delicate 

 operation alluded to in the above verse could be 



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