[406]. They must not be confounded with the grelots lascifs, the little bells of gold or silver set by the people of Pegu in the prepuce-skin, and described by Nicolo de Conti who however refused to undergo the operation.
[407]. Relation des découvertes faites par Colomb etc. p. 137: Bologna 1875: also Vespucci’s letter in Ramusio (i. 131) and Paro’s Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains.
[408]. See Mantegazza loc. cit. who borrows from the Thèse de Paris of Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, “Frictiones per coitum productæ magnum mucosæ membranæ vaginalis turgorem, ac simul hujus cuniculi coarctationem tam maritis salacibus quæritatam afferunt.”
[409]. Fascinus is the Priapus-god to whom the Vestal Virgins of Rome, professed tribades, sacrificed; also the neck-charm in phallus-shape. Fascinum is the male member.
[410]. Captain Grose (Lexicon Balatronicum) explains merkin as “counterfeit hair for women’s privy parts. See Bailey’s Dict.” The Bailey of 1764, an “improved edition,” does not contain the word which is now generally applied to a cunnus succedaneus.
[411]. I have noticed this phenomenal cannibalism in my notes to Mr. Albert Tootle’s excellent translation of “The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse:” London, Hakluyt Society, mdccclxxiv.
[412]. The Ostreiras or shell mounds of the Brazil, sometimes 200 feet high, are described by me in Anthropologia No. i. Oct. 1873.
[413]. The Native Races of the Pacific States of South America, by Herbert Howe Bancroft, London, Longmans, 1875.
[414]. All Peruvian historians mention these giants, who were probably the large-limbed Caribs (Caraíbes) of the Brazil: they will be noticed in page 244.
[415]. This sounds much like a pious fraud of the missionaries, a Europeo-American version of the Sodom legend.