In other cases, these ritual cruelties are executed, not on the organism as a whole, but on a particular organ or tissue, whose vitality it is their object to stimulate. Thus, among the Arunta, the Warramunga and many other tribes,[1076] at a certain moment in the initiation, certain persons are charged with biting the novice severely in the scalp. This operation is so painful that the patient can hardly support it without uttering cries. Its object is to make the hair grow.[1077] The same treatment is applied to make the beard grow. The rite of pulling out hairs, which Howitt mentions in other tribes, seems to have the same reason for existence.[1078] According to Eylmann, the men and women of the Arunta and the Kaitish make small wounds on their arms with sticks red with fire, in order to become skilful in making fire or to acquire the strength necessary for carrying heavy loads of wood.[1079] According to this same observer, the Warramunga girls amputate the second and third joints of the index finger on one hand, thinking that the finger thus becomes better fitted for finding yams.[1080] It is not impossible that the extraction of teeth was sometimes destined to produce effects of this sort. In any case, it is certain that the cruel rites of circumcision and subincision have the object of conferring particular powers on the genital organs. In fact, the young man is not allowed to marry until after he has undergone them; so he owes them special virtues. What makes this initiation _sui generis_ indispensable is that in all inferior societies, the union of the sexes is marked with a religious character. It is believed to put redoubtable forces into play which a man cannot approach without danger, until after he has acquired the necessary immunity, by ritual processes:[1081] for this, a whole series of positive and negative practices is used, of which circumcision and subincision are the forerunners. By painfully mutilating an organ, a sacred character is given to it, since by that act, it is put into shape for resisting the equally sacred forces which it could not meet otherwise.