AN INTERESTING CUSTOM 
children took the name of the mother and not of the father. 
The Bororos, like the Tuaregs, rightly claimed that there 
could be no mistake as to who the mother of a child was, 
but that certainty did not always apply to the father. 
This was decidedly a sensible law among the Bororos, 
who were most inconstant in their affections. They were 
seldom faithful to their wives, at least, for any length of 
time. 
The Bororos were not prolific. They frequently 
indulged in criminal practices in order to dispose of their 
young: either by strangulation at birth or soon after, or 
by drugging their women before the birth of the child. 
The young, when allowed to live, took milk from their 
mothers until the ages of five or six years. The parents 
were extremely kind to their children; indeed, they were 
extraordinarily good-natured and considerate. Eight 
days after birth they perforated the lower lip of male 
children and inserted a pendant, taking that opportunity 
to give a name to the child. The lobes of the ears were 
perforated at the age of ten or twelve. 
It was only at the age of about twenty that men were 
allowed to marry. 
I found among the Bororos an interesting custom 
which I had seen but once before—in Central Asia, on 
the slopes of the Himalaya Mountains, among the Shoka 
tribesmen. I am referring to the “ clubs,” called by the 
Bororos Wai manna ghetgiao. There the young men and 
girls went, not only with the object of selecting a wife or 
husband, but also to get thoroughly acquainted and see 
if the mate selected were suitable or not. The men sat on 
one side of the club-house — a mere hut — the women on 
the other. In a way, these clubs prevented hasty 
marriages, for the men were given plenty of time to study 
their prospective brides and the girls their future hus¬ 
bands. Curiously enough, in the Bororo country it was 
generally the woman who proposed to the man. When 
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