s and changes in
religions were perpetuated to the Middle Ages. Charles Martel sent
Pepin, his son, to Luithprand, king of the Lombards, that he might cut
his first locks, and by this ceremony hold for the future the place of
his illustrious father. To make peace with Alaric, Clovis became his
adopted son by offering his beard to be cut. Among the Caribs the hair
constituted their chief pride, and it was considered unequivocal proof
of the sincerity of their sorrow, when on the death of a relative they
cut their hair short. Among the Hebrews shaving of the head was a
funeral rite, and among the Greeks and Romans the hair was cut short in
mourning, either for a relative or for a celebrated personage.
According to Krehl the Arabs also had such customs. Spencer mentions
that during an eruption in Hawaii, "King Kamahameha cut off part of his
own hair" ... "and threw it into the torrent (of lava)."

The Tonga regarded the pubic hairs as under the special care of the
devil, and with great ceremony made haste to remove them. The female
inhabitants of some portions of the coast of Guinea remove the pubic
hairs as fast as they appear. A curious custom of Mohammedan ladies
after marriage is to rid themselves of the hirsute appendages of the
pubes. Depilatory ointments are employed, consisting of equal parts of
slaked lime and arsenic made into a paste with rose-water. It is said
that this important ceremony is not essential in virgins. One of the
ceremonies of assuming the toga virilis among the indigenous
Australians consists in submitting to having each particular hair
plucked singly from the body, the candidate being required not to
display evidences of pain during the operation. Formerly the Japanese
women at marriage blackened their teeth and shaved or pulled out their
eyebrows.

The custom of boring the ear is very old, mention of it being made in
Exodus xxi., 5 and 6, in which we find that if a Hebrew servant served
for six years, his freedom was optional, but if he plainly said that he
loved his master, and his wife and children, and did not desire to
leave their house, the master should bring him before the judges; and
according to the passage in Exodus, "he shall also bring him to the
door or unto the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through
with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." All the Burmese, says
Sangermano, without exception, have the custom of boring their ears.
The days when the operations we