vi.)
In the Jaboo country on the Bight of Benin in West Africa,
Daniell stated, it was considered ornamental to elongate the
labia and the clitoris artificially; small weights were appended
to the clitoris and gradually increased. (W.F. Daniell,
_Topography of Gulf of Guinea_, 1849, pp. 24, 53.)
Among the Bawenda of the northern Transvaal, the missionary
Wessmann states, it is customary for young girls from the age of
8 to spend a certain amount of time every day in pulling the
_labia majora_ in order to elongate them; in selecting a wife the
young men attach much importance to this elongation, and the girl
whose labia stand out most is most attractive. (_Zeitschrift fuer
Ethnologie_, 1894, ht. 4, p. 363.)
It may be added that in various parts of the world mutilations of
the sexual organs of men and women, or operations upon them, are
practiced, for reasons which are imperfectly known, since it
usually happens that the people who practice them are unable to
give the reason for this practice, or they assign a reason which
is manifestly not that which originally prompted the practice.
Thus, the excision of the clitoris, practiced in many parts of
East Africa and frequently supposed to be for the sake of dulling
sexual feeling (J.
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