Teoyamaqui, the wife of Huitzlipochtli, the Aztec god of war, was depicted with a necklace of human hands.[145] Squier also says that Darga or Kali, the Hindu goddess, who corresponds very closely to her, was represented with "a necklace of skulls" and "a girdle of dissevered human hands."
The Hindu goddess Kali was decorated with a necklace of human skulls.[146] In the Propaganda collection, given in Kingsborough,[147] are to be seen human arms and legs.
"On the death of any of the great officers of state, the finger bones and hair are also preserved; or if they have died shaven, as sometimes occurs, a bit of their mbŭgŭ dress will be preserved in place of the hair."[148] "Their families guard their tombs."[149]
The principal war fetiches of Uganda "consist of dead lizards, bits of wood, hide, nails of dead people, claws of animals, and beaks of birds." Stanley saw them displayed before King Mtesa.[150]
"Some of the women in Gippsland wear round the neck human hands, which, Mr. Hull says, were beautifully prepared. He moreover informs me that they sometimes wear the parts of which the 'Lingam' and 'Priapus' were the emblems."[151] "The Gippsland people keep the relics of the departed. They will cut off the hands to keep as a remembrance, and these they will attach to the string that is tied round the neck."[152]
Smyth also relates that the women of some of the Australian tribes preserve "the hands of some defunct member of the tribe—that of some friend of the woman's, or perhaps one belonging to a former husband. This she keeps as the only remembrance of one she once loved; and, though years may have passed, even now, when she has nothing else to do, she will sit and moan over this relic of humanity. Sometimes a mother will carry about with her the remains of a beloved child, whose death she mourns."[153] The Australians also use the skulls of their "nearest and dearest relatives" for drinking vessels; thus, a daughter would use her mother's skull, etc.[154]
"One of the most extraordinary of their laws is that a widow, for every husband she marries after the first, is obliged to cut off a joint of a finger, which she presents to her husband on the wedding day, beginning at one of the little fingers."[155]
In the Army and Navy Journal, New York, June 23, 1888, is mentioned a battle between the Crow of Montana and the Piegan, in which the former obtained some of the hands and feet of dead warriors of the first-named tribe and used them in their dances.
Catlin shows that the young Sioux warriors, after going through the ordeal of the sun dance, placed the little finger of the left hand on the skull of a sacred buffalo and had it chopped off.[156]
"The sacrifices [of American Indians] at the fasts at puberty sometimes consist of finger joints."[157]