returned to Venice, where he filled a similar post. In 1516 he was summoned to Rome by Leo X., who appointed him archbishop of Monemvasia (Malvasia) in the Peloponnese, but he died before he left Italy. Since 1493 Musurus had been associated with the famous printer Aldus Manutius, and belonged to the “Neacademia,” a society founded by Manutius and other learned men for the promotion of Greek studies. Many of the Aldine classics were brought out under Musurus’s supervision, and he is credited with the first editions of the scholia of Aristophanes (1498), Athenaeus (1514), Hesychius (1514), Pausanias (1516).
See R. Menge’s De M. Musuri vita studiis ingenio, in vol. 5 of M. Schmidt's edition of Hesychius (1868).
MUTE (Lat. mutus, dumb), silent or incapable of speech. For the human physical incapacity see Deaf and Dumb. In phonetics (q.v.) a “mute” letter is one which (like p or g) represents no individual sound. The name of “mutes” is given, for obvious reasons, to the undertaker’s assistants at a funeral. In
music a “mute” (Ital. sordino, from Lat. surdus, deaf) is a device
for deadening the sound in an instrument by checking its vibrations.
Its use is marked by the sign c.s. (con sordino), and its
cessation by s.s. (senza sordino). In the case of the violin and
other stringed instruments this object is attained by the use of a
piece of brass, wood or ivory, so shaped as to fit on the bridge
without touching the strings and hold it so tightly as to deaden
or mufllle the vibrations. In the case of brass wind instruments
a leather, wooden or papier mâché pad in the shape of a pear
with a hole through it is placed in the bell of the instrument,
by which the passage of the sound is impeded. The interference
with the pitch of the instruments has led to the invention of
elaborately constructed mutes. Players on the horn and
trumpet frequently use the left hand as a mute. Drums are
muted or “muffled” either by the pressure of the hand on the
head, or by covering with cloth. In the side drum this is effected
by the insertion of pieces of cloth between the membrane and the
“snares,” or by loosening the “snares.” The muting of a
pianoforte is obtained by the use of the soft-pedal.
MUTIAN, KONRAD (1471–1526), German humanist, was
born in Homberg on the 15th of October 1471 of well-to-do
parents named Mut, and was subsequently known as Konrad
Mutianus Rufus, from his red hair. At Deventer under Alexander
Hegius he had Erasmus as schoolfellow; proceeding (1486) to
the university of Erfurt, he took the master’s degree in 1492.
From 1495 he travelled in Italy, taking the doctor’s degree
in canon law at Bologna. Returning in 1502, the landgraf of
Hesse promoted him to high office. The post was not congenial;
he resigned it (1503) for a small salary as canonicus in Gotha.
Mutian was a man of great influence in a select circle especially
connected with the university of Erfurt, and known as the
Mutianischer Bund, which included Eoban Hess, Crotus
Rubeanus, Justus Jonas and other leaders of independent
thought. He had no public ambition; except in correspondence,
and as an epigrammatist, he was no writer, but he furnished
ideas to those who wrote. He may deserve the title which has
been given him as “precursor of the Reformation,” in so far as he
desired the reform of the Church, but not the establishment
of a rival. Like Erasmus, he was with Luther in his early
stage, but deserted him in his later development. Though he
had personally no hand in it, the Epistolae obscurorum virorum
(due especially to Crotus Rubeanus) was the outcome of the
Reuchlinists in his Bund. He died at Gotha on the 30th of
March (Good Friday) 1526.
See F. W. Kampschulte, Die Universität Erfurt (1858–1860); C. Krause, Eobanus Hessus (1879); L. Geiger, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biog. (1886); C. Krause, Der Briefwechsel des Mutianus Rufus (1885); another collection by K. Gillert (1890). (A. Go.*)
MUTILATION (from Lat. mutilus, maimed). The wounding,
maiming and disfiguring of the body is a practice common
among savages and systematically pursued by many entire races.
The varieties of mutilation are as numerous as the instances of
it are widespread. Nearly every part of the body is the object
of mutilation, and nearly every motive common to human
beings—vanity, religion, affection, prudence—has acted in
giving rise to what has been proved to be a custom of great
antiquity. Some forms, such as tattooing and depilation,
have stayed on as practices even after civilization has banished
the more brutal types; and a curious fact is that analogous
mutilations are found observed by races separated by vast
distances, and proved to have had no relations with one another,
at any rate in historic times. Ethnical mutilations have in
certain races a great sociological value. It is only after submission
to some such operation that the youth is admitted to
full tribal rights (see Initiation). Tattooing, too, has a semi-religious
importance, as when an individual bears a representation
of his totem on his body; and many mutilations are tribe
marks, or brands used to know slaves.
Mutilations may be divided into: (1) those of the skin; (2) of the face and head; (3) of the body and limbs; (4) of the teeth; (5) of the sexual organs.
1. The principal form of skin-mutilation is tattooing (q.v.), the ethnical importance of which is very great. A practice almost as common is depilation, or removal of hair. This is either by means of the razor, e.g. in Japan, by depilatories, or by tearing out the hairs separately, as among most savage peoples. The parts thus mutilated are usually the eyebrows, the face, the scalp and the pubic regions. Many African natives tear out all the body hair, some among them (e.g. the Bongos) using special pincers. Depilation is common, too, in the South Sea Islands. The Andaman islanders and the Botocudos of Brazil shave the body, using shell-edges and other primitive instruments.
2. Mutilations of the face and head are usually restricted to the lips, ears, nose and cheeks. The lips are simply perforated or distended to an extraordinary degree. The Botocudos insert disks of wood into the lower lip. Lip-mutilations are common in North America, too, on the Mackenzie river and among the Aleutians. In Africa they are frequently practised. The Manganja Women pierce the upper lips and introduce small metal shields or rings. The Mittu women bore the lower lip and thrust a wooden peg through. In other tribes little sticks of rock crystal are pushed through, which jingle together as the wearer talks. The women of Senegal increase the natural thickness of the upper lip by pricking it repeatedly until it is permanently inflamed and swollen. The ear, and particularly the lobe, is almost universally mutilated, from the earrings of the civilized West to the wooden disks of the Botocudos. The only peoples who are said not to wear any form of ear ornament are the Andaman islanders, the Neddahs, the Bushmen, the Fuegians and certain tribes of Sumatra. Ear mutilation in its most exaggerated form is practised in Indo-China by the Mois of Annam and the Penangs of Cambodia, and in Borneo by the Dyaks. They extend the lobe by the insertion of wooden disks, and by metal rings and weights, until it sometimes reaches the shoulder. In Africa and Asia earrings sometimes weigh nearly half a pound. Livingstone said that the natives of the Zambesi distend the perforation in the lobe to such a degree that the hand closed could be passed through. The Monbuttus thrust through a perforation in the body of the ear rolls of leaves, or of leather, or cigarettes. The Papuans, the inhabitants of the New Hebrides, and most Melanesian peoples carry all sorts of things in their ears, the New Caledonians using them as pipe-racks. Many races disfigure the nose with perforations. The young dandies of New Guinea bore holes through the septum and thrust through pieces of bone or flowers, a mutilation found, too, among New Zealanders, Australians, New Caledonians and other Polynesian races. In Africa the Bagas and Bongos hang, metal rings and buckles on their noses; the Aleutians cords, bits of metal or amber. In women it is the side of the nose which is usually perforated; rings and jewelled pendants (as among Indian and Arabic women, the ancient Egyptians and Jews), or feathers, flowers, coral, &c. (as in Polynesia), being hung there. Only one side of the nose is usually perforated, and this is not always merely decorative. It may denote social position, as among the Ababdes in Africa, whose unmarried girls wear no rings in their noses. The male Kulus of the Himalaya wear a large ring in the left nostril. Malays and Polynesians sometimes deform the nose by enlarging its base, effecting this by compression of the nasal bones of the newly born.
The cheeks are not so frequently mutilated. The people of the Aleutian and Kurile Islands bore holes through their cheeks and place in them the long hairs from the muzzles of seals. The Guaranis of South America wear feathers in the same manner. In some countries the top of the head or the skin behind the ears of children is burnt to preserve them from sickness, traces of which mutilation are said to be discoverable on some neolithic skulls; while some African tribes cut and prick the neck close to the ear. By many peoples the deformation of the skull was anciently practised. Herodotus, Hippocrates and Strabo mention such a custom among peoples of the Caspian and Crimea. Later similar practices were found existing among Chinese mendicant sects, some tribes of Turkestan, the Japanese priesthood, in Malaysia, Sumatra, Java and
