died so carefully. The
women, he says,

"have their face, breast, and arms covered with black
figures of various shapes, so that they present the
appearance of a Turkish carpet." "This savage ornament is
purchased with blood and many groans."

The thorns used to puncture the skin are poisonous, and after the
operation the girl has her eyes, cheeks, and lips so horribly swelled
that she "looks like a Stygian fury." If she groans while undergoing
the torture, or shows signs of pain in her face, the old woman who
operates on her exclaims, in a rage: "You will die single, be assured.
Which of our heroes would think _so cowardly a girl_ worthy to be his
wife?" Such courage, Dobrizhoffer explains further, is admired in a
girl because it makes her "prepared to bear the pains of parturition
in time." In some cases vanity supplies an additional motive why the
girls should submit to the painful operation with fortitude; for those
of them who "are most pricked and painted you may know to be of high
rank."

Here again we see clearly that the tattooing is admired for other than
esthetic reasons, and we realize how foolish it is to philosophize
about the peculiar "taste" of these Indians in admiring a girl who
looks like "a Turkish carpet" or "a Stygian fury." If they had even
the rudiments of a sense of beauty they would not indulge in such
disgusting disfigurements.

MUTILATION, FASHION, AND EMULATION

Grosse declares (80) that "we know definitely at least, that tattooing
is regarded by the Eskimo as an embellishment." He bases this
inference on Cranz's assertion that Eskimo mothers tattoo their
daughters in early youth "for fear that otherwise they would not get a
husband." Had Grosse allowed his imagination to paint a particular
instance, he would have seen how grotesque his inference is. A
favorite way among the Eskimo of securing a bride is, we are told, to
drag her from her tent by the hair. This young woman, moreover, has
never washed her face, nor does any man object to her filth. Yet we
are asked to believe that an Eskimo could be so enamoured of the
_beauty_ of a few simple lines tattooed on a girl's dirty face that he
would refuse to marry her unless she had them! Like other champions of
the sexual selection theory, Grosse searches in the clouds for a
comically impossible motive when the real reason lies right before his
eyes. That reason is fashion. The tattoo marks are tribal signs
(Bancrof