MUTILATIONS. 59 



the Lord hath spoken concerning him. . . I will put my 

 hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips.&quot; And then 

 add the fact that in Assyrian sculptures are represented 

 prisoners being led by cords attached to rings through their 

 noses. Do we not see a kindred filiation conquest, inci 

 dental marking of the captive, survival of the mark as 

 distinguishing subject persons? 



360. Jaws can be taken only from those whose lives 

 are taken. There are the teeth, however: some of these 

 may be extracted as trophies without seriously decreasing 

 the usefulness of the prisoner. Hence another form of 

 mutilation. 



We have seen that teeth of slain foes are worn in 

 Ashantee and in South America. Now if teeth are taken 

 as trophies from captives who are preserved as slaves, loss 

 of them must -become a mark of subjection. Of facts 

 directly showing that a. propitiatory ceremony hence arises 

 I can name but one. Among mutilations undergone when 

 a king or chief dies in the Sandwich Islands, Ellis names 

 knocking out one of the front teeth: an alternative being 

 cutting the ears. When we further read in Cook that the 

 Sandwich Islanders knock out from one to four of the front 

 teeth, showing that the whole population becomes marked 

 by these repeated mutilations suffered to propitiate the 

 ghosts of dead rulers when we infer that in propitiation of 

 a much-dreaded ruler deified after death, not only those 

 who knew him may submit to this loss, but also their chil 

 dren subsequently born ; we see how the practice, becoming 

 established, may survive as a sacred custom when its mean 

 ing is lost. For concluding that the practice has this 

 sacramental nature, there are the further reasons derived 

 from the fixing of the age for the operation, and from the 

 character of the operator. In New South Wales it is the 

 Koradger men, or priests, who perform the ceremony; and 

 of a semi-domesticated Australian, Haygarth writes that he 



