Volume 1

348 HYPERTROPHIED LABIA MINORA.
the Mandanes ;
the men appeared to take pride in displaying
their nudities. I am also informed that they are much
given to unnatural lusts and often prefer a young man to a
woman. They have many berdashes amongst them, who
make it their business to satisfy such beastly passions.
The men are always ready to supply a stranger with a bedfellow,
if he has any property. They are very complaisant
in giving him the choice of their women, and proud when
they can accommodate him with one who is provided with
a good swinging pair of contrevents, or well labiated. I am
not competent to determine whether this extraordinary
appendage be natural or otherwise. I am informed that it
is produced by the filthy custom of the men pulling upon it
daily while the girls are still young, and continuing to do
so when they are grown to maturity, until it attains the
length of several inches on each side of the orifice. Some
say that such females suspend weights to the parts for
that purpose, and others again say it is natural to some
of the women. That some of the women have such
ornaments, or whatever we may choose to call them, I
can afifirm from ocular demonstration. These people, Hke
their neighbors, have the custom of washing morning and
evening, and then wallowing in mud or clay, which
answers the purpose of soap.
Formerly this village consisted of 900 huts, but the
smallpox and other diseases have reduced them to their
present number. They have been settled upon this spot
time out of mind. They are not so fond of cultivating the
ground as their neighbors ; although they raise an immense
quantity of corn, etc., it falls far short of what is gathered
by the Mandanes. They differ from the last in many
points, and appear to be of a more roving and restless disposition.
The Big Bellies' huts are constructed in the
same t^^anner as those of their neighbors, excepting that
the ground is dug out about four feet below the surface,
which makes them deeper than the others. They do not
stable the horses in the hut with themselves, but put them