The Descent of Man

suffering thus caused must have been extreme,
for many of the operations require several
years for their completion, so that the idea of
their necessity must be imperative. The motives
are various; the men paint their bodies to make
themselves appear terrible in battle; certain
mutilations are connected with religious rites,
or they mark the age of puberty, or the rank of
the man, or they serve to distinguish the tribes.
Amongst savages the same fashions prevail for
long periods (50. Sir S. Baker (ibid. vol. i. p. 210)
speaking of the natives of Central Africa says,
"every tribe has a distinct and unchanging fashion
for dressing the hair." See Agassiz ('Journey
in Brazil,' 1868, p. 318) on invariability of
the tattooing of Amazonian Indians.), and thus
mutilations, from whatever cause first made,
soon come to be valued as distinctive marks.
But self-adornment, vanity, and the admiration
of others, seem to be the commonest motives.
In regard to tattooing, I was told by the missionaries
in New Zealand that when they tried to