might be added regarding other races; such as Kane’s (184), regarding the Chinooks:  “Painting the face is not much practised among them, except on extraordinary occasions, such as the death of a relative, some solemn feast, or going on a war-party;” or Morgan’s (263), that the feather and war dances were “the chief occasions” when the Iroquois warrior “was desirous to appear in his best attire,” etc.

Again, even if it were true that “the desire for self-decoration is strongest at the beginning of the age of puberty,” it does not by any means follow that this must be due to the desire to make one’s self attractive to the opposite sex.  Whatever their desire may be, the children have no choice in the matter.  As Curr remarks regarding Australians (11., 51),

“The male must commonly submit, without hope of escape, to have one or more of his teeth knocked out, to have the septum of his nose pierced, to have certain painful cuttings made in his skin, ...before he is allowed the rights of manhood.”

There are, however, plenty of reasons why he should desire to be initiated.  What Turner writes regarding the Samoans has a general application: 

“Until a young man was tattooed, he was considered in his minority.  He could not think of marriage, and he was constantly exposed to taunts and ridicule, as being poor and of low birth, and as having no right to speak in the society of men.  But as soon as he was tattooed he passed into his majority, and considered himself entitled to the respect and privileges of mature years.  When a youth, therefore, reached the age of sixteen, he and his friends were all anxiety that he should be tattooed."[111]

No one can read the accounts of the initiatory ceremonies of Australian and Indian boys (convenient summaries of which may be found in the sixth volume of Waitz-Gerland and in Southey’s Brazil III., 387-88) without becoming convinced that with them, as with the Samoans, etc., there was no thought of women or courtship.  Indeed the very idea of such a thing involves an absurdity, for, since all the boys in each tribe were tattooed alike, what advantage could their marks have secured them?  If all men were equally rich, would any woman ever marry for money?  Westermarck accepts (174) seriously the assertion of one writer that the reason why Australians knock out some of the teeth of the boys at puberty is because they know “that otherwise they would run the risk of being refused on account of ugliness.”  Now, apart from the childish supposition that Australian women could allow their amorous inclinations to depend on the presence or absence of two front teeth, this assertion involves the assumption that these females can exercise the liberty of choice in the selection of a mate—­an assumption which is contrary to the truth, since all the authorities on Australia agree on at least one point, which is that women have