S. King _Journal of the Anthropological
Society_, Bombay, 1890, p. 2), seems very doubtfully accounted
for thus, for the women have it done of their own accord; "all
Sobo women [Niger coast] have their clitoris cut off; unless they
have this done they are looked down upon, as slave women who do
not get cut; as soon, therefore, as a Sobo woman has collected
enough money, she goes to an operating woman and pays her to do
the cutting." (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
August-November, 1898, p. 117.) The Comte de Cardi investigated
this matter in the Niger Delta: "I have questioned both native
men and women," he states, "to try and get the natives' reason
for this rite, but the almost universal answer to my queries was,
'it is our country's fashion.'" One old man told him it was
practiced because favorable to continence, and several old women
said that once the women of the land used to suffer from a
peculiar kind of madness which this rite reduced. (_Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, August-November, 1899, p. 59.) In
the same way the subincision of the urethra (mika operation of
Australia) is frequently supposed to be for the purpose of
preventing conception (See, e.
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