ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESULTS. 389 



mutilation is generally found at a more tender âge than the finger-mutilation, for I often saw 

 among children a sore ear-edge. My impression was that simply a strip had been eut off, 

 while the wound, soon getting crusty, was left to itself. The sharp instrument, with which 

 the opération is performed, is probably a pièce of bamboo. Sometimes the left ear, sometimes 

 the right and often both were mutilated, also among the children. The meaning of the mu- 

 tilation has remained unknown to us. I saw a grown-up woman with finger-mutilations, but 

 sound ears, and several children with mutilated ears but sound fingers. Evidently the opéra- 

 tions need not go together. 



Except the mutilations mentioned above, which I should like to consider as ritual, 

 there are found others serving to ornaments, namely the piercing of the nose-septum and of 

 the earlobes. Both are practised among men as well as among women. Perhaps it is too much 

 saying that thèse opérations should be done for the purpose of decorating, for seldom, and 

 then only among the men, I saw ornaments in nose and ears; mostly there was found in 

 the former a short, nearly invisible stick, often there was nothing and for the ears this was 

 the rule. Xow and then however we saw men wearing a pair of boars' tusks through the 

 nose. This seemed to be the customary ornament and it is not improbable that on festal 

 occasions it is of common use. In the ear-holes round-bent feathershafts were sometimes 

 observed. The scanty use, made of thèse piercings, obtained with pain and difRculty, asto- 

 nished us the more as for the rest ornaments were worn in abundance. 



We saw a girl of about ten years old, undergoing the process of piercing. A pricker- 

 shaped pièce of wood, about 2 à 3 m. m. thick and about 5 cm. long, appeared to be pushed 

 through the earlobe ; the crusty wound proved that the opération had recently been done. 

 The old man who accompanied this girl and her somewhat older sister, imitated the gesture 

 of piercing and pricking. The greater child showed me with pride the holes in its ear. I 

 noted that it was the left one, while of the little sister the right ear was treated. 



Consulting my notes I find the following statements about the ear-holes. 



Hole in the lobe of ' maies 



right ear 

 left ear 

 both ears 

 no lobes 



H (40%) 

 " (30°/ ) 



females 



4(17%) 

 10 (41 %) 



5 (21%) 

 5 (21%) 



il (30%) 

 36 24 



Two things are clear: i° that in the majority of the cases only one ear is pierced ; 

 2° that it occurs not seldom among women as well as among men that the ears are not 

 pierced at ail. Further we state that none of the 36 maies had both ears pierced; for the 

 rest the small figures don't justify any conclusion '). 



Tattooing was never observed, and I suppose that the rougher form of skin-decoration, 

 that consisting of raised scars, was absent too. Often did I remark however the well-known 

 thick scars, but thèse were spread ail over the body in such an arbitrary way that I ascribed 

 them to keloid-formation in scars of natural origin. 



1) It is worth mentioning that Kleiweg de Zwaan stated for the people of Nias [79] that also there the men 

 had only one ear pierced. This was the right one; the women had holes in both ears. 



