Shaving of the face, as well as of the scalp, is a common prac tice among primitive people, and may be carried out with such instruments as a piece of broken glass, or a special iron blade. It is usually done dry, without the use of water or lather. Depila tion by singeing, as well as by the use of ointments occasionally occurs. Removal of the hair is usually due to tribal custom, as hairy people are despised and often unable to find a mate.
There are few if any parts of the world where some portions of the head and face entirely escape mutilation, but the most commonly maltreated are the ears, nose, lips and teeth. Skull deformation may be the result of deliberate intention, or of chance. In some tribes, especially in America every individual was intentionally treated as a child with the direct view of re ducing the skull to a certain shape. In other cases, as in parts of Africa, deformation is the unintentional result of the local methods of carrying water pots or loads on the head. Young children, especially girls, start such work long before the skull is properly developed and the result is a definite and fairly uniform deformation. Skull deformation occurs in nearly every part of the world, though commonest in the Americas and least common, if at all existent, in Australia. Intentional deformation is carried out from various motives, sometimes a long pointed head, some times a flat depressed head being the shape required. Various methods are employed, commonest of which are by bandaging, and by tying the child's head to a flat board fixed to the occipital region.
These are pierced to carry earrings all the world over, indeed very few, primitive or civilised peoples, leave the ears to tally unmutilated, though the Andamanese, Bushmen and true Baganda are reported as doing so. Both the ear lobes, as well as the cartilage round the top of the ear, are commonly pierced. This is usually done during childhood and a small piece of wood is inserted into the wound which is then left to heal. Later this plug is removed and a larger one inserted, the process being con tinued until the required size of hole is obtained by reason of this continual stretching. In many countries both sexes treat their ears in this way, while in others it is confined to one or other sex. The greatest distensions are to be found in Borneo and East
Africa. In both these places lobes are often seen so stretched that they hang down to the shoulder, with holes so large that it would be possible to pass a closed fist through them. In all these ear mutilations adornment is the end in view. Large carved wooden plugs, carved stone ornaments, metal rings and fibre and paper rolls, all are used as earrings, while to-day even earthenware jam pots and circular cigarette tins are popular in some parts of Africa.
In some tribes such as the Kikuyu, a husband if displeased with his wife breaks the lobe of her ear with his hands.
The nose is often mutilated for purposes of personal adornment especially in India, and the East, as well as in New Guinea and Polynesia, S. America, Australia and in parts of Africa. Nose ornaments also signify social rank. Sometimes it is the alae, and sometimes the septum which is perforated. Often only a small hole is made through the septum from which a gold ring or other jewel is suspended ; at other times the hole in the septum is big enough for a finger to be passed through. Else where one, and occasionally both, nostrils are pierced and dis tended to carry coloured studs, sometimes of unbelievable size, as among the Makonde of Portuguese East Africa. Nose orna ments are more common with women than men, but in New Guinea and especially among the Tugeri and the Solomon Island ers, the men wear great pointed sticks, or sometimes the tusks of wild pig through holes in the nose.
In several parts of Africa, especially in the Congo, the south east Tanganyika Territory, and the upper reaches of the Nile, and among the Botocudo of S. America enormous plates and plugs are inserted in hugely distended holes, cut in the upper and lower lips. The lip studs and pins of the Nilotic peoples of Uganda, Kenya Colony and the Sudan are usually small and made of ivory, rock crystal or stone, and are inserted through the upper and lower lips or both. Other lip mutilations include prick ing and rubbing with irritant to cause them to swell. This is done in parts of West Africa.