LIP AND EAR ORNAMENTS OF THE BOTOCUDUS. 75; 



mords of southern Brazil in 1549, says of one of the chiefs, " Then 

 he arose, and strutted before me with proud conceit, and he had a 

 large round green stone sticking through the lips of his mouth as 

 their custom is." * 



The opening in the lower lip is made when the person is quite 

 young by piercing it with a long, slender thorn that grows on a 

 kind of palm tree ; this is enlarged with the point of a deer's horn, 

 and a stick or small stone is inserted and the wound is greased 

 with some kind of salve. These openings are gradually enlarged 

 by forcing bigger and bigger plugs into them until the desired 

 size is reached. It was formerly the custom when the young men 

 were old enough to bear arms 

 that the openings were en- 

 larged and the green stone 

 labrets inserted.! 



Jean de Lery says that 

 sometimes when these stones 

 are out, just for the fun of 

 it, they stick their tongues 

 through the holes in their 

 lips, to make people believe 

 they have two mouths. He 

 adds, "I leave you to judge 

 whether they look handsome 

 when they are doing this." J 



The lip ornament is of two 

 very different forms, only one 

 of which — the broad and stop- 

 per-shaped one — is illustrated 

 in the accompanying cuts ; 



the other is long and rudely T-shaped. The shank or long cylin- 

 der is pushed through the opening from inside the lip and the 

 cross-piece at the top prevents its falling out. The openings for 

 ornaments of this kind are not nearly so large as those required 

 by the stopper-shaped ones. Several writers tell of the use of 

 stones for labrets. Jean de Lery* speaks of polished bone as 

 white as ivory used by the big boys, and replaced when they are 

 grown by green stones. I have seen many of them made of clay 

 and burned like pottery, while the ornaments in most common use 

 nowadays are made of wood. 



There is a fair collection of Brazilian Indian lip and ear orna- 



Fig. 3. — Botocudc Man. The ear ornament has 

 been removed and the distended lobe is al- 

 lowed to hang free. 



* The Captivity of Hms Stide, of Hesse. The HaMuyt Society, No. li, p. 12. 

 \ Hans Stade, p. 139. 



\ Histoire d'vn Voyage faict en la Terre dv Bresil, par lean de Lery. Geneva, 1583, 

 p. 104. * Op. cit, p. 104. 



