from the heads or hands of children on solemn occasions may be a
softening of an old savage custom, and the blood of circumcision is
sacred. But this quality attaches to all blood, and the essential thing
in circumcision is not the blood but the removal of the prepuce.

+161+. The suggestion that the object of detaching and preserving the
foreskin (a vital part of one's self) is to lay up a stock of vital
energy, and thus secure reincarnation for the disembodied spirit,[311]
is putting an afterthought for origin. The existence of the practice in
question is doubtful, and it must have arisen, if it existed, after
circumcision had become an established custom. Savages and other
peoples, when they feel the need of providing for reincarnation,
commonly preserve the bones or the whole body of the deceased.

+162+. _Circumcision and other operations performed on females._
Circumcision of girls is practiced by many African savage tribes (Nandi,
Masai, Mandingos, and others), by Malays and Arabs, Gallas and
Abessinians and others. Introcision appears to be confined to Australia.
Infibulation is practiced in Northeastern Africa and by the Mohammedan
Malays.[312] The effect, and doubtless the purpose, of the first and
second of these operations is to facilitate coition; the object of the
third is to prevent coition until the proper time for it arrives. They
are all connected more or less with initiation or with arrival at the
age of puberty, and they are, naturally, sometimes associated with other
ceremonies.

+163+. _Origin of circumcision._ The preceding review may be taken to
make it probable that the origin of circumcision is not to be referred
to reflection or to religious ideas. We must look for a cruder motive,
and several considerations point to the desire to facilitate coition as
the starting-point of the custom (so also R. F. Burton). Reports from
all over the savage world testify to the prominence of sexual
intercourse in the lower forms of human life. Folk-stories are full of
coarse details of the practice. Popular festivals are often
characterized by gross license. To lend a wife to a guest is in many
places a recognized rule of hospitality.[313] In all this there is
nothing immoral--it is permitted by the existing law and is in accord
with the current ideas of propriety. Early man seems in this regard to
have obeyed his animal appetite without reflection. This form of
pleasure occupied (and occupies) a great part