which is accompanied by some solemnity as a religious feast, is performed on approaching manhood.
But the people who have carried these strange customs to the greatest excess are the Thlinkeets, who inhabit the southeastern shores of Alaska.[1] "Here it is the women who, in piercing the nose and ears, and filling the apertures with bones, shells, sticks, pieces of copper, nails, or attaching thereto heavy pendants, which drag down the organs and pull the features out of place, appear to have taxed their inventive powers to the utmost, and with a success unsurpassed by any nation
Fig. 3.—Botocudo Indian. From Bigg-Wither's "Pioneering in South Brazil" (1878).
in the world, to produce a model of hideous beauty. This success is achieved in their wooden lip-ornament, the crowning glory of the Thlinkeet nation, described by a multitude of eye-witnesses. In all female free-born Thlinkeet children, a slit is made in the under lip, parallel with the mouth, and about half an inch below it. A copper wire, or a piece of shell or wood, is introduced into this, by which the wound is kept open and the aperture extended. By gradually introducing larger objects the required dimensions of the opening are produced. On attaining the age of maturity, a block of wood is inserted, usually oval or elliptical in shape, concave on the sides, and grooved like the wheel of a pulley on the edge in order to keep it in place. The dimensions of the block are from two to six inches in length, from one to four inches in width, and about half an inch thick round the edge, and it is highly polished. Old age has little terror in the eyes of a
- ↑ See Bancroft, op. cit., vol. i., for numerous citations from original observers regarding these customs.
