ABSTRACT
The Leŋge and the Tʃopi women have the story of their lives written on their own flesh. But because the written story sometimes grows dim, it has to be rewritten at intervals, until the marks are ineffaceable. And why is this done, absolutely regardless of the inconvenience and physical suffering which such operations occasion? The women themselves say that they wish to make their bodies beautiful. The Ŋgoni say: ‘If you do not pierce your ear, it will resemble a mat!’ The Tʃopi would ridicule any non-tatued stranger coming to their country thus: ‘Oh! you do not tatu yourself, and therefore you resemble a fish!’ But there seems to be a deeper reason than the merely ornamental one. A Leŋge woman once said: ‘If we see any object which pleases us very much, we go home and have a picture of it tatued on the body; but if other people envy us, and want to make tatuing like ours, we do not reveal where we have seen the object, for the spirit of the thing remains with her who has had a representation of it made on the body.’ This remark must apply more particularly to personal or decorative marks.
