Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/487

 us. iv. DEC. 16, Mil.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

481

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1911.

CONTENTS. -No. 103.

NOTES: Ear-piercing, 481 Hampshire : its Formation, 482 Inscriptions at St. John's, Westminster, 484 Ludgate, 485 St. Francis of Assisi and his Snow Family Law-Hand, 486-" Honorificabilitudinitatibus " : Early Use-" Subway," 487.

QUERIES : Drummond of Hawthornden ' Dictionary of Musicians' of 1822-7, 487 County Bibliographies ' Cata- logue of Honor ' Bardsey Family Eugene Aram : Daniel Clarke Frick Friday Authors Wanted Thekeston or Thexton Family, 488 Heraldic Dr. Butler's Curious Pictures in 1618 Alex. Forbes, 1564-1617 Reeve : Day Pyke: Sharpe, 489 "Riding the high horse" Curly "N" Welsh Quotation Money Value Aaron Hugh, Pirate Guild of the B.V.M. in Dublin " Polilla," 4907

REPLIES : Sir Francis Drake, 490 " Cytel " Passive with an Object, 491' Old Morgan at Panama 'Johnson and ' The Pilgrim's Progress ' Pope's Position at Holy Communion Maida : Naked Soldiers, 492 Peers immor- talized by Public-HousesFire-Papers, 493 -Dud Dudley R. Anstruther, M. P. John Bode Watchmakers' Sons "All who love me" 'The Velvet Cushion 'Rev. Dr. Ogilvie FS=3. 2d., 494-King's Theatre, Haymarket- Selden : " Force " " Swale "Dry Weather in Nineteenth Century Tailor and Poet, 495 Authors Wanted Avia- tion in 1811 Milton-next-Gravesend Corporation of London and Medical Profession Father Conolly "Broken Counsellor " Pontefract Castle, 496 Penge John Addenbrook " Happen "Omar Khayyam' Diary of a BlasV 497 Morland's Inn Sign Dillon on Disraeli ' ' Vive la Beige " ' ' Make a long arm " "Dolberline," 498 H. F. Jadis Overing Tweedmouth Private Lunatic Asylums Royal Exchange Urban V.'s Name, 499.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Skeat on English Dialects' Chats on Postage Stamps ' ' Pickwick ' and ' Nicholas Nickleby ' ' Burlington'' National Review.'

OBITUARY : Henry Snowden Ward.

EAR-PIERCING.

THE custom of piercing the ears, in one form or another, is common to almost all countries and races of mankind. It has been associated, however, at different periods and in different places, with widely varied ideas. First, of course, there is the obvious utili- tarian object in perforating the lobe of the ear that ornaments (or, in some cases, amulets) may be suspended from it. Piercing for this purpose has been practised chiefly by the female sex, although in many nations (and even in our own during the Elizabethan period) it has extended to the male also. Secondly, there is the practice of piercing for medicinal purposes, particu- larly for the cure of sore eyes, which, as numerous kind replies to a recent query of mine in these columns have shown, is still more or less prevalent in this country. No doubt the curative effects of the little operation are in reality due to the counter- irritation thereby set up, but, unless I am much mistaken, the origin of the practice must be sought in the once widespread

belief in the beneficent properties of gold when brought into close contact with the body. Thirdly, there is the association of ear-boring with servitude, of which we have the principal example in Exodus xxi. 6 :

" Then his master shall bring him unto the judges ; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post ; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl ; and he shall serve him for ever."

The same directions occur in Deuteronomy xv. 17, and doubtless represent a practice common amongst Oriental peoples at that period, symbolizing the permanent attach- ment of the domestic slave to the house of his master. Pierced ears are said to have denoted servitude among the Phoenicians.

There is, however, a fourth and more interesting connexion in which we meet with this custom of ear-piercing, both in the old and new worlds. In all nations there are ceremonies connected with the period of adolescence, commonly of a nature partly religious and partly social, marking the development of the boy, and his approach to man's estate. Among savage and quasi- civilized peoples some degree of bodily suffering usually accompanies these " rites of initiation," designed partly, perhaps, to propitiate the malignant powers, and partly to test the endurance and self-control of the neophyte. As civilization advances, however, such ceremonies tend to become more and more purely symbolic, though the idea of physical pain often remains asso- ciated with them. (Perhaps the "slight blow on the cheek " which accompanies the Pax tecum of the bishop in the Latin rite of confirmation has some such significance.) The custom of piercing the ears appears as a ceremony of this nature in several widely separated parts of the world.

It existed in ancient Peru, where it formed an important religious ceremony, the young nobles undergoing it in the great Temple of the Sun. In the case of princes of the blood royal the Inca himself performed the rite, piercing the lobes of the boys' ears with a golden pin.

It is also a custom of very ancient usage in India, and is thus described in Sir M. Monier- Williams' s work on * Brahmanism and Hinduism,' 3rd edition, p. 360. He tells us that after the ceremony of cutting the hair in the seventh or eighth year "another ceremony followed, called Ear-boring (Karnavedha). This was treated by some as a dis- tinct religious rite The boy was fed with honey or

something sweet and made to sit down with his face towards the east. Then two perforations were made in his right ear, and a particular Mantra from the last hymn of the Sama-veda was recited. Its first