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542 Brupin gave it to one of the old men. The boy was then led aside by the Kabo, who told him that he must on no account spit out the blood, but swallow it, otherwise the wound would not heal. The stoical indifference shown by this boy, to what must have been an exquisitely painful operation, was most surprising. I watched him carefully, and he could not have shown less feeling had he been a block of wood. But as he was led away I noticed that the muscles of his legs quivered in an extraordinary manner.

The Gommera now danced up to the second boy, and amidst the same shouts of "Wirri" gave a hoist to the boy's tooth with his own, and then struck his first blow. This, however, produced a different effect on this boy, for he set up a tremendous yell and struggled violently. His outcry was, however, drowned by the cries of "Wirri" and the boy's eyes being still covered, the Gommera again danced in from the masked figures, behind whom he had been crouching, and again struck his blow. This produced the same effect as before. The old men now said that the boy had been too much with the women, and had played too much with the little girls, thereby causing his tooth to be so firmly fixed. Yibai-malian now came forward, in his character of a great medicine-man, and first of all gave the tooth a tremendous hoist up with his lower jaw, then he put his mouth to that of the boy, who made a tremendous struggle, and got his arms free. Yibai told me afterwards that he then forced one of his Joïas, a quartz crystal, up against the tooth to loosen it. The boy, feeling this hard substance coming out of the medicine-man's mouth, thought, as he afterwards told his Kabo, that the man was going to kill him by something out of his inside. While this was going on, the men near to the boy said to him, "Now you be quiet, only a little more and it will be out."

As soon as the boy was soothed down, the Gommera danced in again and succeeded in getting a good blow which knocked the tooth out. He struck thirteen blows in all.

The third boy now only remained, the smallest of the three, and in his case one of his Kabos, a man of the Ngarigo