"
(Brough Smyth, 274.) Wilhelmi says that in the Northwest the men place
in the head-band behind the ears pieces of wood decorated with very
thin shavings and looking like plumes of white feathers. They do this
"on occasions of rejoicings and when engaged in their mystic
ceremonies." Nicaraguans trace the custom of flattening the heads of
children to instructions from the gods, and Pelew Islanders believed
that to win eternal bliss the septum of the nose must be perforated,
while Eskimo girls were induced to submit to having long stitches made
with a needle and black thread on several parts of the face by the
superstitious fear that if they refused they would, after death, be
turned into train tubs and placed under the lamps in heaven.[77] In
order that the ghost of a Sioux Indian may travel the ghost road in
safety, it is necessary for each Dakota during his life to be tattooed
in the middle of the forehead or on the wrists. If found without
these, he is pushed from a cloud or cliff and falls back to this
world.[78] In Australia, the Kurnai medicine men were supposed to be
able to communicate with ghosts only when they had certain bones
thrust through the nose.[79] The _American Anthropologist_ contains
(July, 1889) a description of the various kinds of face-coloring to
indicate degrees in the Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa.
Pages:
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373