ves, so
muzzled, to Lisbon, on the return from his first voyage. Some tribes
were observed to wear an apparatus like the old-fashioned
candle-extinguisher, the virile member having been forced into this
receptacle, which was strapped about the loins.

The travelers Spix and Martius found the practice of circumcision of
both sexes in the region of the upper Amazon River and among the Tuncas.
Squires mentions a curious custom of the aborigines of Nicaragua. They
wound the penis of their little sons and let some of the blood flow on
an ear of corn, which is divided among the assembled guests and eaten by
them with great ceremony.

On the fifth day after birth it is the custom among the Omaha Indians of
North America to christen the infant, the child being stripped and
spotted with a red pigment; considerable ceremony accompanies the
act.[23]

Among the cannibals of Australia, Lumholtz[24] observed a practice that
seems to have no analogue in the wide world, either as an operation or
in regard to its purposes. About ninety-five per cent. of the children
are subjected to the ordeal. This is no less than the formation of an
artificial hypospadias; this abnormality is formed through the penis
into the urethra, near its junction with the scrotum; the wound is about
an inch in length and is made with a flint knife which serves for no
other purpose; the edges of the wound are burned with a hot stone, and
the wound is subsequently kept open by the introduction of a small piece
of wood, which, on healing, leaves a permanent opening. These cannibals
undoubtedly are inspired by some Malthusian spirit which impels them
thus to functionally eunuchize themselves in one sense, as during
copulation the seminal discharge flies out backward through this
opening, being thereby a most effectual check on further procreation. By
some, this practice has been attributed to the unreliability of the
seasons in regard to food-production; but Lumholtz observes that where
the practice is most in vogue--among the tribes to the west of the
Diamantina River and west and north of the Gulf of Carpentaria--the
food-supply is not deficient, the region being full of rats, fish, and
vegetables. All the tribes are not subject to the practice of the
operation at the same time of life; in some, the hypospadias is not
produced until in adult life and after the person has married and has
become the father of one or two children, when he must submit to the
requi