Hardly any part of the body, which can be unnaturally modified, has escaped. The amount of suffering thus caused must have been wonderfully great, for many of the operations require several years for their completion, so that the idea of their necessity must be imperative. The motives are various; the men paint their bodies to make themselves appear terrible in battle; certain mutilations are connected with religious rites; or they mark the age of puberty, or the rank of the man, or they serve to distinguish the tribes. As with savages the same fashions prevail for long periods,[421] mutilations, from whatever cause first made, soon come to be valued as distinctive marks. But self-adornment, vanity, and the admiration of others, seem to be the commonest motives. In regard to tattooing, I was told by the missionaries in New Zealand, that when they tried to persuade some girls to give up the practice, they answered, “We must just have a few lines on our lips; else when we grow old we shall be so very ugly.” With the men of New Zealand, a most capable judge[422] says, “to have fine tattooed faces was the great ambition of the young, both to render themselves attractive to the ladies, and conspicuous in war.” A star tattooed on the forehead and a spot on the chin are thought by the women in one part of Africa to be irresistible attractions.[423] In most, but not all parts of the world, the men are more highly ornamented than the women, and often in a different manner; sometimes, though rarely, the women are hardly at all ornamented. As the women are made by savages to perform the greatest share of the work, and as they are not allowed to eat the best kinds of food, so it accords with the characteristic selfishness of man that they should not be allowed to obtain, or to use, the finest ornaments. Lastly it is a remarkable fact, as proved by the foregoing quotations, that the same fashions in modifying the shape of the head, in ornamenting the hair, in painting, tattooing, perforating the nose, lips, or ears, in removing or filing the teeth, &c., now prevail and have long prevailed in the most distant quarters of the world. It is extremely improbable that these practices which are followed by so many distinct nations are due to tradition from any common source. They rather indicate the close similarity of the mind of man, to whatever race he may belong, in the same manner as the almost universal habits of dancing, masquerading, and making rude pictures.