The Open court . le their teeth topoints ; some perforate their lips, their ears, or their noses. In oneparticular instance a man slit his upper lip to the base of his nose,turned back the ends and fastened them to his nostrils, thus ex-posing his upper teeth in this hideous fashion. A very common SAVAGE LIFE AND CUSTOM. 671 practice is to perforate the lips, into the hole thus made a pebble,piece of bone or metal is inserted; the ornament is increased in sizefrom time to time, till a hole is made large enough to insert acheese plate. Sometimes, as among the Sara-Kamba of CentralAfrica, two la
The Open court . le their teeth topoints ; some perforate their lips, their ears, or their noses. In oneparticular instance a man slit his upper lip to the base of his nose,turned back the ends and fastened them to his nostrils, thus ex-posing his upper teeth in this hideous fashion. A very common SAVAGE LIFE AND CUSTOM. 671 practice is to perforate the lips, into the hole thus made a pebble,piece of bone or metal is inserted; the ornament is increased in sizefrom time to time, till a hole is made large enough to insert acheese plate. Sometimes, as among the Sara-Kamba of CentralAfrica, two large plates are worn—the one in the upper lip beingthree inches in diameter, and the lower one six inches across. Oneresult of wearing these peleles is that prolonged conversationon the part of the wearer is impossible. In Central Africa, women w^ere seen who passed their tonguesthrough the holes and licked their noses. Nor is the tongue itselfforgotten ; one young lady had no less than five rings fixed in Fig. 11. NATIVE OF NEW BRITAIN,Showing nose-sticks worn throught the perforated nose. Even a child only two or three days old will have the lobes of itsears pierced, and in time a loop will be formed so large that it caneasily be slipped over the head. An African lad, fourteen yearsof age, wore an ornament in his ear which v/as six and a halfinches in diameter and weighed nearly three pounds. Ornamentsof this weight are by no means uncommon and necessitate thewearers throwing the lobes of their ears over the shoulders whengoing about their daily tasks. The Rev. G. Brown saw a man inMelanesia wdio had one ear fitted with a clock, the clock itselfbeing thirteen inches in diameter. In Borneo lads have holes punched 672 THE OPEN COURT. through the tops of their ears. The youth stands against a tree orpost, the hole being punched out by means of a cylinder of widespread custom is to thrust sticks or pieces of bonethrough holes which have been made in the bas
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887
