With a prophetic eye to future charms, they begin early. The ear-lobes are slit when a baby is two or three days old, and as soon as ever the cuts are sufficiently healed several small pewter rings are inserted, and gradually increased in number until their weight amounts to five or six ounces, and by the end of the first year the lobe has been lengthened three or four inches.
This gradual increase of weights is kept up with girls until the lobe stretches seven or eight inches. I have seen many a loop of skin, thus formed, sufficiently large and elastic to allow it to be slipped over the head.
It is by no means uncommon to see women with as many as three pounds of copper rings dangling in their ears; of course, this precludes all rapid motion unless the weights are supported by the hands. When they stoop over their work the rings are tossed behind on the back.
It often happens that the weights in the ears are increased injudiciously, and the thin band of skin gives way; it may be that the loop catches on a twig in the jungle or on some projection in the house, and, in a minute, all the long years of suffering have been in vain; immaculate beauty is for ever gone. To be sure, the ends may be spliced by instantly binding them fast together; but an ugly, tell-tale lump is the result, and nevermore are the two ears of a symmetrical, lovely length, and nevermore can they, like John Gilpin’s bottles, ‘keep the balance true’ by bearing equal weights of copper rings. The patched lobe remains the weaker.
A KENYAH WOMAN WITH ELONGATED EAR-LOBES.
THE PROCESS OF ELONGATING THE EAR-LOBES IS BEGUN ON THE SECOND OR THIRD DAY AFTER BIRTH, BY MAKING IN THE LOBE A SMALL PERPENDICULAR SLIT, WHICH IS KEPT OPEN WITH A PLEDGET OF CLOTH OR A PLUG OF WOOD UNTIL THE WOUND HAS HEALED; THEN SEVERAL SMALL PEWTER OR COPPER RINGS ARE INSERTED AND GRADUALLY INCREASED IN SIZE AND NUMBER UNTIL THE LOBE AND THE SKIN OF THE NECK BELOW THE EAR BECOME SO STRETCHED THAT THE EAR-RINGS HANG FAR DOWN ON THE CHEST. SHOULD THE ORIGINAL SLIT NOT PROVE SUFFICIENTLY LARGE, OR SHOULD A GIRL WISH TO ENHANCE HER CHARMS BY AN ENLARGED EAR-LOBE, A SMALL, SPLIT CYLINDER OF BAMBOO, HAVING THE EDGES OF THE SPLIT, SHARPENED LIKE KNIVES, IS CLAMPED UPON THE SKIN ABOVE THE FORMER SLIT, AND GRADUALLY CUTS THROUGH, THUS ENABLING THE STRETCHING PROCESS TO EXTEND HIGHER UP TO THE SKIN OF THE EAR AND THE CHEEK.
The women of the Berawan tribe, instead of weights, insert discs of wood three or four inches in diameter, often carved on both sides in delicate star-shaped patterns, and sometimes brightened by bits of colored glass or mirrors inlaid in the centre.
The Kayan and Kenyah men never stretch their ear-lobes to the same length as do the women; it is effeminate in a man to have his ears depend further than just to graze the shoulder. Men seldom wear more than one small copper ring, which is heavy enough merely to keep the loop taut.
The men of these same tribes, although they escape from extreme length of ears, must endure a second mutilation of this appendage. But this time it is in the upper part that a hole is punched, wherein, when they attain to full manhood and have been on a war expedition, there is inserted a tiger-cat’s canine tooth decorated at the large end with a tuft of bead-work, or a silver cap, to keep it in place. Before they are entitled to this adornment, the hole, at least half an inch in diameter, is kept open by a simple wooden plug, which is generally worn, even by warriors, except on ceremonial occasions, and especially when in mourning for the dead.