60 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



said one day, &quot; with a look of importance, that he must go 

 away for a few days, as he had grown up to man s estate, 

 and ( it was high time that he should have his teeth knocked 

 out. Various African races, as the Batoka, the Dor, 

 similarly loso two or more of their front teeth; and 

 habitually the loss of them is an obligatory rite. But the 

 best evidence is furnished by the ancient Peruvians. 

 A tradition among certain of them was that the conqueror 

 Iluayna Ccapac, finding them disobedient, &quot; made a law 

 that they and their descendants should have three of their 

 front teeth pulled out in each jaw.&quot; Another tradition, 

 naturally derivable from the last, was that this extraction of 

 teeth by fathers from their children was a &quot; service very 

 acceptable to their gods.&quot; And then, as happens with 

 other mutilations of which the meaning has dropped out of 

 memory, the improvement of the appearance was in some 

 parts the assigned motive. 



361. As the transition from eating conquered enemies 

 to making slaves of them, mitigates trophy-taking so as to 

 avoid causing death; and as the tendency is to modify the 

 injury inflicted so that it shall in the least degree diminish 

 the slave s usefulness; and as, with the rise of a class born 

 in slavery, the mark which the slave bears, no longer show 

 ing that he was taken in war, does not imply a victory 

 achieved by his owner; there eventually remains no rea 

 son for a mark which involves serious mutilation. Hence 

 it is inferable that mutilations of the least injurious kinds 

 will become the commonest. Such, at any rate, seems a 

 reasonable explanation of the fact that cutting off of hair 

 is the most prevalent mutilation. 



Already we have seen the probable origin of the custom 

 in Fiji, where tributaries had to sacrifice their locks on 

 approaching their great chiefs; and there is evidence that a 

 kindred sacrifice was demanded of old in Britain. In the 

 Arthurian legends, which, unhistoric as they may be, yield 



