ice them are unable to
give the reason for this practice, or they assign a reason which
is manifestly not that which originally prompted the practice.
Thus, the excision of the clitoris, practiced in many parts of
East Africa and frequently supposed to be for the sake of dulling
sexual feeling (J.S. King _Journal of the Anthropological
Society_, Bombay, 1890, p. 2), seems very doubtfully accounted
for thus, for the women have it done of their own accord; "all
Sobo women [Niger coast] have their clitoris cut off; unless they
have this done they are looked down upon, as slave women who do
not get cut; as soon, therefore, as a Sobo woman has collected
enough money, she goes to an operating woman and pays her to do
the cutting." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
August-November, 1898, p. 117.) The Comte de Cardi investigated
this matter in the Niger Delta: "I have questioned both native
men and women," he states, "to try and get the natives' reason
for this rite, but the almost universal answer to my queries was,
'it is our country's fashion.'" One old man told him it was
practiced because favorable to continence, and several old women
said that once the women of the land used to suffer from a
peculiar kind of madness which this rite reduced. (_Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, August-November, 1899, p. 59.) In
the same way the subincision of the urethra (mika operation of
Australia) is frequently supposed to be for the purpose of
preventing conception (See, e.g., the description of the
operation by J.G. Garson, _Medical Press_, February 21, 1894),
but this is very doubtful, and E.C. Stirling found that
subincised natives often had large families. (_Intercolonial
Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery_, 1894.)

A passage in the _Mainz Chronicle_ for 1367 (as quoted by
Schultz, _Das Hoefische Leben_, p. 297) shows that at that time
the tunics of the men were so made that it was always possible
for the sexual organs to be seen in walking or sitting.

This insistence on the naked sexual organs as objects of attraction is,
however, comparatively rare, and confined to peoples in a low state of
culture. Very much more widespread is the attempt to beautify and call
attention to the sexual organs by tattooing,[135] by adornment and by
striking peculiarities of clothing. The tendenc