Dr. Franz Boas (c) says:
Tattooings are found on arms, breast, back, legs, and feet among the Haida; on arms and feet among the Tshimshian, Kwakiutl and Bilqula; on breast and arms among the Nootka; on the jaw among the Coast Salish women.
Among the Nootka scars may frequently be seen running at regular intervals from the shoulder down the breast to the belly, and in the same way down the legs and arms. * * *
Members of tribes practicing the Hamats'a ceremonies show remarkable scars produced by biting. At certain festivals it is the duty of the Hamats'a to bite a piece of flesh out of the arms, leg, or breast of a man.
TATTOO IN SOUTH AMERICA.
Dr. im Thurn (c) says:
Tattooing or any other permanent interference with the surface of the skin by way of ornament is practiced only to a very limited extent by the Indians; is used, in fact, only to produce the small distinctive tribal mark which many of them bear at the corners of their mouths or on their arms. It is true that an adult Indian is hardly to be found on whose thighs and arms, or on other parts of whose body are not a greater or less number of indelibly incised straight lines; but these are scars originally made for surgical, not ornamental purposes.
Herndon and Gibbon (a), p. 319, report:
Following the example of the other nations of Brazil (who tattoo themselves with thorns, or pierce their nose, the lips, and the ears,) and obeying an ancient law which commands these different tortures, this baptism of blood, * * * the Mahués have preserved * * * the great festival of the Tocandeira.
Paul Marcoy (b) says of the Passés, Yuris, Barrés, and Chumanas, of Brazil, that they mark their faces (in tattoo) with the totem, or emblem of the nation to which they belong. It is possible at a few steps distant to distinguish one nation from another.