Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/509

Rh The second group of bodily deformations is that of bandagings—various and widely spread. With these we may consider some freaks of unrestrained growth. In China and Siam the fingernails are allowed to go uncut and attain great length. In China they are carefully oiled and kept in tubes; in Siam they are incased in silver tips. In China they also occur among religious ascetics. In all these the meaning is clear. The person with such nails does not and can not do ordinary manual labor. Hence they are a sign of nobility or of sanctity. The Marquesas Islander also wears his finger-nails long and pointed as a sign of rank. Of true bandaging—every one knows of the dwarfing of the Chinese woman's foot—the practice is confined to women, though not to women of the highest rank. Flower describes the physiological action and result of this: (a) Operation: "The four outer toes are bound under the sole in such a way as to leave the great toe only in a normal position and to bring the whole foot to a narrow point in front, (b) Results: The roots of the heel and toes are compressed downward and toward each other, shortening the foot and making a deep transverse fold in the middle of the sole." The subject of the operation, which is begun in childhood, is, of course, crippled for life. The bandaged foot becomes also an object that must not be seen, a disgrace; and yet the Chinaman calls it a "golden lily." In the Philippine Islands women bind their arms in order to gain the ideal of womanly beauty, a large fist. The results would even suit the present taste of Boston. The Wahamba, in East Africa, bind the legs of children, up to the knee, to make them calfless, "that they may run better"; while the Puris women, in South America, develop the calf excessively by bandages above and below, "for beauty."

The most remarkable bandaging, however, is that of the head. Deformation of this kind has a wide range in time and space. Hippocrates speaks of it 400, and it still exists. And where has it not prevailed? It is known to have existed in the Caucasus, the Crimea, Hungary, Silesia, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Polynesia, China, and other parts of Asia. Nowhere,