ractive to the opposite sex. Whatever their desire may be, the
children have no choice in the matter. As Curr remarks regarding
Australians (11., 51),

"The male must commonly submit, _without hope of escape_, to
have one or more of his teeth knocked out, to have the
septum of his nose pierced, to have certain painful cuttings
made in his skin, ...before he is allowed the rights of
manhood."

There are, however, plenty of reasons why he should desire to be
initiated. What Turner writes regarding the Samoans has a general
application:

"Until a young man was tattooed, he was considered in his
minority. He could not think of marriage, and he was
constantly exposed to taunts and ridicule, as being poor and
of low birth, and as having no right to speak in the society
of men. But as soon as he was tattooed he passed into his
majority, and considered himself entitled to the respect and
privileges of mature years. When a youth, therefore, reached
the age of sixteen, he and his friends were all anxiety that
he should be tattooed."[111]

No one can read the accounts of the initiatory ceremonies of
Australian and Indian boys (convenient summaries of which may be found
in the sixth volume of Waitz-Gerland and in Southey's _Brazil_ III.,
387-88) without becoming convinced that with them, as with the
Samoans, etc., there was no thought of women or courtship. Indeed the
very idea of such a thing involves an absurdity, for, since all the
boys in each tribe were tattooed alike, what advantage could their
marks have secured them? If all men were equally rich, would any woman
ever marry for money? Westermarck accepts (174) seriously the
assertion of one writer that the reason why Australians knock out some
of the teeth of the boys at puberty is because they know "that
otherwise they would run the risk of being refused on account of
ugliness." Now, apart from the childish supposition that Australian
women could allow their amorous inclinations to depend on the presence
or absence of two front teeth, this assertion involves the assumption
that these females can exercise the liberty of choice in the selection
of a mate--an assumption which is contrary to the truth, since all the
authorities on Australia agree on at least one point, which is that
women have absolutely no choice in the selection of a husband, but
have to submit in all cases to the dispositions made by