84 OBJECT OF THE PELELE. Chap. III. 



of the nose, and a small pin inserted to prevent the 

 puncture closing up. After it has healed, the pin is taken 

 out and a larger one is pressed into its place, and so on 

 successively for weeks, and months, and years. The 

 process of increasing the size of the lip goes on till its 

 capacity becomes so great that a ring of two inches 

 diameter can be introduced with ease. All the highland 

 women wear the pelele, and it is common on the Upper 

 and Lower Shire. The poorer classes make them of 

 hollow or of solid bamboo, but the wealthier of ivory 

 or tin. The tin pelele is often made in the form of a 

 small dish. The ivory one is not unlike a napkin-ring. 

 No woman ever appears in public without the pelele, 

 except in times of mourning for the dead. It is fright- 

 fully ugly to see the upper lip projecting two inches 

 beyond the tip of the nose. When an old wearer of a 

 hollow bamboo ring smiles, by the action of the muscles 

 of the cheeks, the ring and lip outside it are dragged 

 back and thrown above the eyebrows. The nose is seen 

 through the middle of the ring, and the exposed teeth 

 show how carefully they have been chipped to look like 

 those of a cat or crocodile. The pelele of an old lady, 

 Chikanda Kadze, a chieftainess, about twenty miles north 

 of Morambala, hung down below her chin, with, of course, 

 a piece of the upper lip around its border. The labial 

 letters cannot be properly pronounced, but the under lip 

 has to do its best for them, against the upper teeth and 

 gum. Tell them it makes them ugly; they had better 

 throw it away ; they reply, " Kodi ! Eeally ! it is the 

 fashion." How this hideous fashion originated is an 

 enigma. Can thick lips ever have been thought beautiful, 

 and this mode of artificial enlargement resorted to in con- 

 sequence ? The constant twiddling of the pelele with the 

 tongue by the younger women suggested the irreverent 

 idea that it might have been invented to give safe em- 



