Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/515

Rh bearing an honorable wound. This is replaced by an artificial wound to show his prowess. We actually find this practice in Kaffirland, and the Tuski makes a permanent mark upon his face for each act of courage. The idea once originated, the arrangement of such scars in an ornamental fashion and the adoption of colors would gradually arise, and in time the whole matter would become simply ornamental, a sign of rank, or religiously symbolical.

Gashing is a most remarkable custom, best studied in Africa and Australia. In Africa, gashes cut upon the forehead, cheeks, breast, or elsewhere, serve two chief purposes: (1) as tribal marks; (2) as signs of prowess. The Yorubas have perpendicular scars from temples to chin; the Ijasha have a long parallelogram of cross-lines; the Maheés, three long oblique cuts on one cheek and a cross on the other; the Nyambanas, pimples or warts, the size of a pea, from the top of the forehead to the tip of the nose (Fig. 10). These gashes are usually made with a knife, and wood-ashes or some other irritating material is rubbed in, to cause a swelling scar.

To what an extent these cuttings are carried may be seen in the Bornu, where "twenty cuts on each side of the face, converging in corners of the mouth, from the angle of the lower jaw and the cheek-bones, while a single cut runs down the center of the forehead; six cuts are made on each arm; six more on the thighs; the same number on the legs; four on each breast; nine on each side above the hip-bones. These are made in infancy, and the children suffer not only from the pain of wounds but from the countless flies that settle on the one hundred and three cuts."

As a sign of war prowess, the gash of the Kaffir warrior, already mentioned, may be described. After an act of bravery, the priest cuts a deep gash in the hero's thigh. This heals blue and is a prized honor. Interesting examples of scars as tribal marks might be described from Australia. To realize the value of a