This excision is termed in Arabic Chafadh خفض, and the person who performs it خافضة. It consists in cutting off the clitoris a little before the period of puberty, or at about the age of eight or nine years[53].
Strabo is apparently the first who mentions this custom, which is nevertheless undoubtedly very antient. Lib. xvii.
—και τα παιδια περιτεμνειν, και τα θηλεα εκτεμνειν, &c.
By the terms very well marking the distinction between this operation and the circumcision of males.
The Mohammedans of Egypt conceive it to have no connexion with their religious creed. Similar are said to be the sentiments of the Christians of Habbesh. In Dar-Fûr many women, particularly among the Arabs, never undergo excision: yet it has not been my fate to see or hear of any of those κλειτοριδες μεγαλαι which are supposed to have brought it into vogue.
Thirteen or fourteen young females underwent خفض in an house where I was. It was performed by a woman, and some of them complained much of the pain, both at and after it. They were prevented from locomotion, but permitted to eat meat. The parts were washed every twelve hours with warm water, which profuse suppuration rendered necessary. At the end of eight days the greater part were in a condition to walk, and liberated from their confinement. Three or four of them remained under restraint till the thirteenth day.
It often happens that another operation accompanies that of excision, which is not, like the latter, practised in Egypt, viz. producing an artificial impediment to the vagina, with a view to prevent coition. This happens most frequently in the case of slaves, whose value would be diminished by impregnation, or even by the necessary result of coition, though unaccompanied by conception. But it is also adopted towards girls who are free; the impulse being too strong to be counteracted by any less firm impediment. This operation, like the former, is performed at all ages from eight to sixteen, but commonly from eleven to twelve; nor are they who undergo it always virgins. In some the parts are more easily formed to cohere than in others. There are cases in which the barrier becomes so firm, that the embrace cannot be received but by the previous application of a sharp instrument[54].
Among some tribes of blacks, there exists a practice of piercing the skin in certain forms by way of ornament.—Each of the punctures leaves an indelible scar, as distinctive as colour, which is not used. This practice, which is of the same description as that of some of the South-sea islands, is used on the face, breast, loins, &c.
The blacks who are castrated for the use of Kahira or Constantinople, undergo that operation in the Upper Egypt, before their arrival at the former; some families, there resident, having the hereditary exercise of this antient practice.
The numbers which undergo it are not very considerable, and it is fatal only to a very small proportion of them.