66 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



it became imperative that the taking of trophies from them 

 should neither endanger life nor Le highly injurious; and 

 that hence instead of jaws, teeth were taken; instead of 

 hands, fingers ; instead of scalps, hair. Similarly in this 

 case, the fatal or dangerous mutilation disappearing, left 

 only such allied mutilation as did not seriously or at all de 

 crease the value of the enemy as a servant. 



That castration was initiated by trophy-taking I find no 

 direct proof; but there is direct proof that prisoners are 

 sometimes treated in a way which trophy-taking of the 

 implied kind would entail. The ancient Persians used to 

 castrate the young men and boys of their vanquished 

 enemies. Of Theobald, Marquis of Spoleto, we read in 

 Gibbon that &quot; his captives . . . were castrated without 

 mercy.&quot; For thinking that there was once an enforced 

 sacrifice of the nature indicated, made to a conqueror, there 

 is the further reason that we find a parallel sacrifice made to 

 a deity. At the annual festivals of the Phrygian goddess 

 Amina [Agdistis], &quot; it was the custom for young men to 

 make themselves eunuchs with a sharp shell, crying out at 

 the same time, Take this, Agdistis. 7 There was a like 

 practice among the Phoenicians; and Brinton names a 

 severe self-mutilation of the ancient Mexican priests, which 

 seems to have included this. Coming in the way shown to 

 imply subordination, this usage, like many ceremonial 

 usages, has in some cases survived where its meaning is 

 lost. The Hottentots enforce semi-castration at about 

 eight or nine years of age; and a kindred custom exists 

 among the Australians. 



Naturally, of this class of mutilations, the less serious is 

 the more prevalent. Circumcision occurs among unallied 

 races in all parts of the world among the Malayo-Poly- 

 nesians in Tahiti, in Tonga, in Madagascar; among the 

 Negritos of New Caledonia and Fiji; among African 

 peoples, both of the coast and the interior, from northern* 

 Abyssinia to southern Kaffir-land ; in America, among some 



