On the other hand, the human mouth is the hotbed of bacteria, which, though innocuous to the adult, may well be hurtful to an infant. The Fijian uses no toothbrush but his index finger, which is seldom as clean as the mouth it is intended to cleanse. It is therefore possible that the fermentative action that causes diarrhoea in children may be set up by the chewing, and the germs of specific constitutional disease may be sometimes introduced. Tuberculosis and leprosy, so far as our present knowledge of them goes, appear likely to be transmissible in this way, and the Fijians are largely affected by both tubercle and leprosy. Most Fijian mothers are heavy smokers, and the residuum of tobacco may well impart a poisonous property to the food. CHAPTER XII CIRCUMCISION AND TATTOOING Like the Arabs, the Fijians circumcised their boys when just entering upon puberty, about the twelfth year. In heathen times the age seems to have been somewhat earlier, for Williams gives the age at from seven to twelve, which corresponds with the custom of the ancient Egyptians, from whom the Jews probably derived the custom. It does not appear to have been strictly a religious rite, though, like all ceremonial acts of the Fijians, it was invested with a religious observance of the tabu. The operation was generally performed in the village _mbure_, upon ten or twenty youths at a time, by one of the old men, who used a piece of split bamboo. The blood was caught on a strip of bark-cloth, called _kula_ (red), which in some places was suspended from the roof of the temple or the house of the chief. Food, consisting of a mess of greens, was taken to the boys by women, who, in some places, as they carried it, chanted the following words:-- "Memu wai onkori ka kula, Au solia mai loaloa, Au solia na ndrau ni thevunga, Memu wai onkori ka kula." "Your broth, you, the circumcised, From the darkness I give it, I give you _thevunga_ leaves, Your broth, you, the circumcised." [Pageheader: CIRCUMCISION A RELIGIOUS RITE]