The older men, with painted faces, then execute dances, in which the women are forbidden to participate. An important feature of these dances is the imitation of totem animals. This also provides an opportunity for humorous episodes. During these pranks, however, the youths are compelled to remain serious. Moreover, they must give evidence of fortitude by fearlessly leaping over the fire. In many of these regions, there is a further ceremony, which is extremely peculiar and of uncertain significance. This consists in the knocking out of teeth. Generally the operation is performed by the medicine-man or, as he ought perhaps to be called in this capacity, the priest. The latter presses the teeth of his own lower jaw against one of the incisors of the upper jaw of the novice, thus loosening the tooth so that it may easily be knocked out with a stone hammer. This is the most primitive form of tooth deformation, a practice common to numerous peoples of nature as a means of beautification. That the original purpose was not cosmetic is clear. Whatever other end it was intended to serve, however, is uncertain, though it was doubtless connected with cult. Perhaps its meaning is suggested in the fact that, before marriage, girls also were frequently deprived of a front tooth, and that the idea prevailed, possibly in connection with this custom, that the exchange of breath, and thus the breath-soul, may play a part in the act of procreation. It is not unreasonable to suppose that these ideas may represent the origin of the kiss. At any rate, as Preusz has pointed out, ancient Mexican pictures represent two deities engaged, apparently, in the act of kissing while (perhaps in reminiscence also of the blood-soul) red smoke passes from the mouth of the one to that of the other. Moreover, it may well be that this exchange of souls in the kiss has its analogue in many regions, particularly in Melanesia, in the exchange of breath through the nose--the so-called nose-greeting which might therefore better be called the nose-kiss. That this exchange is mediated through the nose may be due to the fact that among many of these tribes kissing with the lips is impossible because of mouth-rings, lip-blocks, and other deformations, doubtless originally intended as means of magic. Similar ideas concerning the mouth and the nose, moreover, and their relation to the psyche, are suggested even by the Biblical history of the Creation, according to which God rouses Adam to life by breathing a soul into him through his nose. Through the mouth, man breathes out his soul; through the nose, he received it.