Mutilations of the sex organs are performed by many primitive peoples for religious reasons. They occur much more rarely for the purpose of sex stimulation, as, e.g., the artificial lengthening of the small labia among the Hottentots and the negro women and the slitting of the penis among the Australians. The most frequent mutilation is the abscission of the foreskin of the penis. Circumcision of boys is widespread in Asia, Africa, and Australia. Among the Mohammedan tribes of Asia and the negroes of Northern and Middle Africa it is mostly performed with a razor. In Indonesia a sharp bamboo splinter serves as the instrument for operation; in other places sharp stone splinters are used. In addition to the familiar circular abscission of the foreskin, numerous primitive peoples practise incision of the foreskin, which is split downwards in its full length. Bleeding is stopped generally by very simple means, either by some kind of tampon or by styptic powders. In girls, as, for instance, on some of the Indonesian Islands, the operation often merely consists in the abscission of a small piece of the preputium clitoridis. Among the East African tribes, however, parts of the mons veneris and of the large labia are removed, generally with a dirty razor. After the removal of the labia the two wounds are made to coalesce by letting the girl lie in a suitable position, or sometimes by a suture, which serves the purpose of closing up the vagina. A little tube is inserted to allow for micturition. The united parts are again partly severed for marriage, and completely in case of confinement. After the recovery from confinement partial occlusion is again resorted to (Bartels, p. 271).
Among the natives of Southern Asia living under the influence of Islam circumcision of boys is practised universally, but it is also customary among many peoples that are quite free from Islamitic influence.
Circumcision of girls is practised by various Islamitic peoples of Western Asia and India. The operation is performed by old women. In Baroda and Bombay the clitoris is cut away, ostensibly in order to lessen the sensuality of the girls. In the province of Sindo the circumcision of girls is fairly prevalent, especially among the Pathan and Baluchi tribes. It is performed shortly before marriage by the barber's wife or a female servant, who uses a razor, and it is said to make the confinement easier. Among many tribes in the North-western border province the girls are also circumcised at the age of marriage, and here, besides the clitoris, the small labia are also sometimes cut away. In Baluchistan among some peoples the tip of the clitoris is pinched off; while among others the labia are slashed, so that scars are formed. The operation is performed partly in childhood, partly on the bridal night; in the latter case it assures the requisite flow of blood at the first coition. Among some tribes, in place of circumcision or in addition to it, the hymen is torn on the bridal night (should it still exist), and the vaginal entrance is wounded, so that bleeding is sure to take place at cohabitation. In Sind the castes which prostitute their women are said to practise partial infibulation for contracting the vagina. It is reported from the Punjab that formerly men leaving their home for a time used to close up the sex passage of the wives they left behind.
On the Philippine Islands circumcision is frequently practised by the non-Christian natives, but not everywhere. The Igorots of Luzon incise the foreskin of boys from four to seven years old at the upper side of the glans with a bamboo knife or the edge of a battle axe. They say this is necessary in order to prevent the skin from growing longer and longer. No other reason is now known to them for this operation. Circumcision is practised by the Mohammedans of the Southern Philippine Islands.
Incision of the foreskin is customary on the Indonesian Islands, thus, e.g., on Buru, Ceram, the Watu-Bela Islands, in the Minahassa, partly also in the remaining North and Central Celebes, also on Ambon and Halmaheira. Circumcision is customary on the Aru and Kei Islands, on the Ceram Laut and Goram group, in certain parts of Central Celebes, Ambon, etc. It is doubtful whether circumcision here is due to the influence of Islam.
Incision is practised on various islands in the Western Pacific Ocean, according to Friederici (p. 45), for instance, on New Guinea, on the south-east coast, among the Jabim and on the Astrolabe Bay. In wide districts of New Guinea, however, the inhabitants are not circumcised. On the island Umboi, between New Guinea and New Pomerania, incision is customary, also in various places on the north coast of New Pomerania, on the Witu Islands, some islands of the Admiralty group, etc. If incision is performed at a very early age, the result is similar to that of circumcision. Frequently, however, only completely mature young men are circumcised; in such cases the cut foreskin hangs down as an ugly brown flap. It is questionable whether this intensifies the women's excitement. As many people as possible are circumcised, in order to have the opportunity for a great festival. This is the result of the liking for numbers shown by primitive people, which is to be met with everywhere. For the operation, the person is laid on his back and held down by relatives. The boys scream and wince at the moment of cutting; but the adults are ashamed before the women, and take an areca nut, into which they bite. Among the East Barriari on the north coast of New Pomerania, the operator—a wise man, but not the priest—pushes an oblong piece of wood under the preputium of the patient, and cuts it from the top downward with an obsidian splinter. The custom of incision is widespread in the New Hebrides, New Caledonia (with the exception of the Loyalty Islands), and also in Fiji.
While with the Empress Augusta River expedition in New Guinea, A. Roesike found the foreskin cut among a number of men. It was not a circumcision, nor an incision of the foreskin, but a deep cut into the glans about 1 to 1½ centimetres long, sometimes a single one, sometimes a double one crosswise.
Among some tribes of Indonesia a mutilation is customary, which is most likely intended to intensify the lust of the women. It consists in a perforation of the glans or the body of the male organ, into which a little stick is inserted. These little sticks are called palang, ampallang, utang or kampion, and are replaced on journeys or at work by feather quills. Among some tribes several little sticks are stuck through the penis. Nieuwenhuis describes this operation as follows: "At first the glans is made bloodless by pressing it between the two arms of a bent strip of bamboo. At each of these arms there are openings at the required position opposite each other, through which a sharp pointed copper pin is pressed after the glans has become less sensitive. Formerly a pointed bamboo chip was used for this purpose. The bamboo clamp is removed, and the pin, fastened by a cord, is kept in the opening until the canal has healed up. Later on the copper pin (utang) is replaced by another one, generally of tin, which is worn constantly. Only during hard work or at exhausting enterprises is the metal pin replaced by a wooden one." Exceptionally brave men have the privilege, together with the chief, of boring a second canal, crossing the first, into the glans. Distinguished men may, in addition, wear a ring round the penis, which is cut from the scales of the pangolin, and studded with blunt points. It may hence be concluded that the perforation of the penis is not intended as an endurance test for the young men, but that the pin is introduced for the heightening of sexual excitement. Many natives assert that the insertion of a pin in the perforated penis has the purpose of preventing pederasty, which is very frequent among the Malays (compare Nieuwenhuis, Vol. I., p. 78; Kleiweg de Zwaan, p. 301; Meyer, p. 878; Hose and McDougall, Vol. II., p. 170; Buschan, 1912, p. 240).
Among the Australians the slitting of the male urethra is frequently practised. Formerly it was believed that this custom was intended to prevent conception. But as the Australians who are not under European influence are ignorant of the process of generation, this cannot be its meaning. The operation is generally performed in boyhood or early youth, but even adult men undergo it. Where this operation on the urethra is customary, the hymen of the girls is cut, the cut often going through the perineum. Many tribes practise simple circumcision. Among the Australian tribe Worgait, for instance, certain relatives decide about the circumcision of the boys. After a previous elaborate ceremonial the boy who is to be circumcised is laid on the backs of three men lying on the ground; another man sits on his chest, one holds his legs apart, and the sixth performs the operation by drawing the foreskin forward and cutting it off with a sharp splinter of stone. The group is hidden from the view of the women by a screen made of pieces of bark. Afterwards the youth is instructed by old men how he must behave as a man, and he is informed about the matters kept secret from women. He remains for another two months under the supervision of two sons of his maternal uncle, and has further to go through a number of ceremonies. Other tribes of the Australian North Territory have similar customs.
Circumcision among the Hamites of East Africa is particularly elaborate. As an example we may take the pastoral tribe of the Nandi. These people used to circumcise boys every seven and a half years, and celebrated the occasion with great festivals. Since 1905 circumcision takes place at shorter intervals. The usual age for circumcision is from the fifteenth to the nineteenth year. Younger boys are only circumcised if they are rich orphans, or if their fathers are old men. The ceremony begins at the time of the first quarter of the moon. Three days before the operation the boys are given over by their fathers or guardians into the charge of old men, called moterenic, as many as ten boys going to two of these men. The moterenic and their boys betake themselves to a neighbouring wood, where they build a hut, in which they spend the six months after the circumcision. The boys have their heads shaved and are given a strong aperient of Arsidia sp. Warriors visit the hut, and take away all the boys' clothes and ornaments. Then young girls visit the boys and give them a part of their clothing and ornaments. After the boys have put these on they inform their relations of the forthcoming circumcision. There is dancing on the next day, after which the warriors draw the boys aside to discover from their expressions whether they will behave cowardly or bravely at the circumcision. After this examination the boys receive necklaces from their girl friends, with which they decorate themselves. After sunset they must listen to the sharpening of the operating knife. Warriors are present, and tease the boys. Later on all undress, and a procession is formed with a moterenic at the head and rear of it. Four times they have to crawl through a small cage, where warriors are stationed at the entrance and exit with nettles and hornets. With the former they beat the boys in the face and on the sex organs; the hornets they set on their backs. A fire is kept burning in the middle of the room, around which old men are seated. Each boy has to step before them and beg for permission to be circumcised. He is questioned about his early life; and if the old men think that he has told an untruth or is hiding something, he is put among nettles. If the old men are satisfied with his words, the price of the circumcision has to be arranged, whereupon the boys are led back to their huts. There the warriors and elders assemble the next morning, and at dawn the circumcision begins. The boy to be circumcised is supported by the senior moterenic, the others sitting close by and looking on. The operator kneels before the boy, and with a quick cut performs the first part of the operation; the foreskin is drawn forward and cut off at the tip of the glans penis. The surrounding men watch the boy's face in order to see whether he winces or shows any sign of pain. If this is the case, he is called a coward, and receives the dishonourable nickname of kilpit; he is not allowed to be present at later circumcisions nor at the children's dances. The brave boys receive bundles of ficus from the women, who welcome them with cries of joy when they return the necklaces which they have previously received from their girl friends. The foreskins are collected and placed in an ox horn. Friends and relatives make merry together, while the second part of the operation begins. At this only sterile girls may be present, and also women who have lost several brothers and sisters at short intervals. Many boys become unconscious during this part of the operation. The wounds are only washed with cold water, and the boys are led back to their huts, where they spend some weeks quietly. During the first four days they are not allowed to touch food with their hands; they must eat either out of a half-calabash or with the help of some leaves. They get what they like, also milk and meat. But, apart from their moterenic, nobody may come near them for four days. Afterwards the hand-washing ceremony is performed; the foreskins are taken out of the ox horn, sacrificed to their god, and then buried in cowdung at the foot of a croton tree. Now the boys may eat with their hands again, but still no one may see them except the young children who bring them food. Three months later, when the boys are quite well again, they have to go through a new ceremony, during which they have to dive repeatedly into the river. If one of them should meet with an accident, his father has to kill a goat. Only now may the boys move about freely, but they still have to wear women's clothes (as hitherto) and a special head-dress that hides their faces. They must not enter a cattle kraal nor come near the cattle, nor are they allowed to be outdoors when the hyena howls. This period of semi-seclusion lasts about eight weeks. Its conclusion is celebrated by a feast. Still more ceremonies follow, and again a feast, after which the boys finally enter the status of manhood.
Girls are circumcised when some of them in the settlement have reached marriage age. They are shaved, given aperients, have to put on men's clothes, which they receive from their lovers, and take their clubs, loin bells, etc. After three days' ceremonial the circumcision is performed in the morning, at which the mothers and some old women are present; men are only admitted when they have lost several brothers and sisters in succession. The mothers run about crying and shouting during the operation. Only the clitoris is cut out. If a girl behaves bravely, she may return the clothes and other things of her lover, otherwise they are thrown away. The girls, too, must not touch food with their hands for four days; afterwards they are put into long dresses with a kind of head mask, and have to go through a period of seclusion. After the completion of various other formalities they are fit for marriage (Hollis, 1909, pp. 52 et seq.).
No satisfactory explanation has so far been forthcoming of the purpose of these elaborate circumcision customs. Similar customs are observed by other Hamites of Eastern Africa.
Among the Masai there exists the belief that circumcision was introduced by the command of God (Merker, p. 60). After the circumcision boys and girls are considered grown up. The former have to be circumcised as soon as they are strong enough to take part in a war expedition. The circumcision of sons whose parents have no property and of poor orphans takes place last of all. For the meat banquet which the newly circumcised hold every one present has to supply an ox. Poor boys must first acquire it by working for it. The circumcision is a public affair, and is arranged by the witch doctor in certain years. The old men consult in all the districts, and fix a day for the circumcision of the first batch of boys. All the boys circumcised during a certain number of years form an age class with a particular name (as among the Nandi). Several weeks before the circumcision the boys, adorned with many ornaments, dance and sing in their own and neighbouring kraals, in order to express their joy at their approaching admission into the warrior class. On the day before the circumcision the boys' heads are shaved. On the appointed day itself the boys and the warriors who are present at the operation assemble before dawn at the place chosen by the operators. The boys pour cold water over each other, so as to become less sensitive. After the operation the wounded member is washed with milk; no remedy for stopping the bleeding is applied. Later on all the men of the neighbourhood assemble in the kraal, where they are regaled with meat and honey beer by the parents of the newly circumcised boys. The girls are circumcised as soon as signs of puberty become evident, sometimes even earlier. The operation consists in a complete abscission of the clitoris. The wound, as with the boys, is washed in milk. The girl remains in her mother's hut until the wound is healed. As soon as the man to whom the girl is promised as bride hears of her recovery he pays her father the remaining part of the bride-price, and nothing more stands in the way of the marriage.
Among the Somals in North-east Africa the boys are circumcised when six years old, and the girls are infibulated at three or four years of age. The infibulation is preceded by the shortening of the clitoris and the clipping of the external labia. The operation is performed by experienced women, who also sew up the inner labia (except for a small aperture) with horse-hair, bast, or cotton thread. The girls have to rest for several days with their legs tied together. Before marriage the above-mentioned women or the girls themselves undo the stitching, which, however, is in most cases only severed completely before the confinement (Paulitschke, p. 24).
In Western Africa most peoples practise the circumcision of boys. The age at which this takes place varies greatly. The Duala in Cameron have the boys circumcised when four or five years old, the Bakwiri as late as the twelfth to fourteenth year, and the Dahomey even postpone the circumcision to the twentieth year. But it always takes place before marriage, as women would refuse to have relationship with uncircumcised men (Buschan, "Sitten," III., p. 40).
A peculiar disfigurement of the sex organs is customary among the Hottentots, Bushmen, and many Bantu tribes of Middle and South Africa. This consists in the artificial elongation of the small labia. It was first observed among the Hottentot women, and therefore the elongated labia were called the "Hottentot apron." Among the Jao, Makonde, and other East African Bantu tribes, the girls at the ages of seven, eight, or nine years are instructed by old women about sex intercourse and their behaviour towards grown-up people. At the same time they are encouraged to systematically alter the natural shape of the genital organs by continually pulling at the labia minora and thus unnaturally lengthening them. Karl Weule has seen such disfigured organs from 7 to 8 centimetres long. According to the assertion of numerous male natives, the elongated labia assume such dimensions that they hang half-way down to the knee. The main purpose of this disfiguration seems to be erotic; it is said to excite the men. The assumption that the labia minora are naturally exceptionally large among the Hottentots is certainly wrong. Karl Weule is right when he definitely maintains that his proof of the artificial elongation of the labia among the East Africans establishes it as an indubitable fact that the famous Hottentot apron is also an artificial product. Le Vaillant established this independently almost 100 years before Weule; but the error dragged on from decade to decade, chiefly because nobody troubled or had the good fortune to study the puberty rites as Weule did. It is time at last to give up this erroneous idea.
Among the Jaos the operation of the boys consists in a combination of incision with circumcision so that only a tiny piece of the under-part of the preputium remains. The boy must show courage at the operation. Screams, if they occur, are drowned by the laughter of the bystanders. Bleeding is stilled by bark powder. The boys have to lie down for about twenty days or more, until healing has taken place. As usual, circumcision is combined with instruction about sex behaviour.
In former times the Jaos are said to have imposed castration as a punishment on men for misbehaviour with the chief's wife (Weule, pp. 29, 35). Castration still takes place for this reason among other negro races, especially the Mohammedan Sudanese.
In North America the few Indians still living in a state of nature do not practise mutilation of the sex organs. In South America circumcision exists among the linguistically isolated tribes and the neighbouring Aruake and Karaib tribes of the north-west, also among the tribes on the Ucayali and the tributaries of the Apure (W. Schmidt, p. 1048). The Kayapo Indians on the Araguay river cut the frenulum of the penis with a taquara splinter, and the penis cuff is fastened on to the rolled-up foreskin (W. Kissenberth, p. 55).
The purpose of circumcision is probably to prolong the sex act, for the bare glans is less sensitive than the covered one. Friederici says (p. 89) that the black boys congregating on the stations and plantations frequently discuss these matters amongst themselves; they know that the glans of the circumcised is much less sensitive than that of the uncircumcised. Many authors are of the opinion that the abscission or incision of the foreskin in boys has the purpose of making cohabitation easier in later years, as this is often made difficult by phimosis (tightness of the foreskin). KÜlz (p. 40) found that among the youthful plantation workers in New Mecklenburg nearly a quarter were afflicted with phimosis, and often to such a degree that normal sex functioning was quite impossible. But such a condition does not seem to prevail among most of the primitive peoples practising circumcision. And, further, of what use would mutilations be that had nothing to do with tightness of the foreskin?
The prolonged festivals and elaborate ceremonials which are so often connected with the circumcision of boys and of girls, or with their admission to the state of manhood and womanhood (without accompanying circumcision), are intended to preserve the event in the memory. The long ceremony is deeply impressed upon the mind, and forms a firm nucleus round which other memories cluster which otherwise would be lost in the humdrum of ordinary life. How could the time of entry into manhood remain without ceremonious festival? This seems all the more necessary because the growth into manhood is gradual and almost unnoticeable, and if there were no ceremony, it would pass without making any impression. It is therefore the intention not only to give expression to the beginning virility, but above all to the admission into the league of youth (Schurtz, pp. 95, 96).
