The Andamanese baby "within a few hours of its birth has its head shaved and painted with _kòvob_--(an ochre-mixture), while its diminutive face and body are adorned with a design in _tiela-og_--(white clay); this latter, as may be supposed, is soon obliterated, and requires therefore to be constantly renewed." We are further informed that before shaving an infant, "the mother usually moistens the head with milk which she presses from her breast," while with older children and adults water serves for this purpose (498. 114). The "heroic treatment," meted out by primitive peoples to children, as they approach puberty, has been discussed in detail by Ploss, Kulischer, Daniels. Religion and the desire to attract the affection or attention of the other sex seem to lie very close to the fundamental reasons for many of these practices, as Westermarck points out in his chapter on the "Means of Attraction." (166. 165-212). A divine origin is often ascribed to these strange mutilations. "The Australian Dieyerie, on being asked why he knocks out two front teeth of the upper jaw of his children, can answer only that, when they were created, the Muranaura, a good spirit, thus disfigured the first child, and, pleased at the sight, commanded that the like should be done to every male or female child for ever after. The Pelew Islanders believe that the perforation of the septum of the nose is necessary for winning eternal bliss; and the Nicaraguans say that their ancestors were instructed by the gods to flatten their children's heads. Again, in Fiji it is supposed that the custom of tattooing is in conformity with the appointment of the god Dengei, and that its neglect is punished after death. A similar idea prevails among the Kingsmill Islanders and Ainos; and the Greenlanders formerly believed that the heads of those girls who had not been deformed by long stitches made with a needle and black thread between the eyes, on the forehead, and upon the chin, would be turned into train tubs and placed under the lamps in heaven, in the land of souls" (165. 170, 171).