y by men than by
women. The kinsmen or friends of the deceased chief set the example, and
their retainers were obliged to imitate them. Sometimes a man broke out
his own tooth with a stone, but more usually the service was rendered
him by another, who fixed one end of a stick against the tooth and
hammered the stick with a stone till the tooth broke off. If the men
deferred the operation, the women would perform it on them in their
sleep. More than one tooth was seldom sacrificed at one time; but as the
mutilation was repeated at the decease of every chief of rank or
authority, few men of mature years were to be seen with a whole set of
teeth, and many lost all their front teeth both in the upper and the
lower jaw. Another mutilation practised at such times was to cut one or
both ears, but it seems to have been comparatively rare. Much commoner
was the custom of burning circles or semi-circles on the face or breast
by means of strips of burning bark. The mourners also polled their hair
in various ways. Sometimes they made bald a small round piece on the
crown of the head, like the tonsure of Catholic priests; sometimes they
shaved or cropped close the whole head except round the edge, where a
short fringe was left to hang down; sometimes they made their heads
quite bald on one side and allowed the hair to remain long on the other;
occasionally they cut out a patch in the shape of a horse-shoe either at
the back of the head or above the forehead; sometimes they shore a
number of curved furrows from ear to ear or from the forehead to the
neck. When a chief who had lost a relative or friend had his own hair
cut after any particular pattern, his followers and dependants usually
cropped their hair in the same style. Not to clip or shave the hair in
mourning was regarded as disrespectful to the dead, but the particular
manner of cutting it was left to the taste of the individual.[139] Some
people in their frenzy knocked out their eyes with clubs and stones and
cut as well as burned their flesh.[140] Another peculiar badge of
mourning, adopted principally by the chiefs, was a black spot or line
tattooed on the tongue. The painful operation was performed by
puncturing the tongue with sharp fish-bones dipped in colouring
matter.[141] But though these personal mutilations were popular and
almost universal on the decease of chiefs, they appear not to have been
practised by the common people among themselves. Thus a wife did not
kno