“But whilst the existence among our Indians of these two methods of bodily mutilation, or, if the term be preferred, of ornamentation, may well be doubted, the same cannot be said of the customs of piercing the nose and ears. These were widespread, and were usually common to all the members of the tribe, women as well as men; though there were tribes, like the Iroquois, in which the women did not pierce the nose, and ‘it was only among certain others, that they pierced the ears.’[12] Although evidently intended for ornamental purposes, yet there were people among whom the custom had something of a religious significance, resembling in this respect the practice of infant baptism among ourselves. Thus, for example, we are told by Perrot[13] that the operation was performed when the child was five or six months old by a medicine-man (‘jongleur’), who made an invocation to the sun, or some chosen spirit, beseeching him to have pity on the child and preserve its life. He then pierced the ears with a bone, and the nose with a needle; and filled the wounds in the former with small rolls of bark, and that in the latter with the quill end of a feather. These were suffered to remain until the wounds healed, when they were removed, and in their places were substituted tufts of the down of birds. The ceremony was always accompanied by a feast, and handsome presents were made to the Shaman and his assistants. [Illustration: FIG. 317. (S. about 1–2.) The specimen to the left, the winged type, is a typical Pennsylvania-New Jersey type. It is quite different from those of farther west and the upper Mississippi Valley. The one to the right is not essentially different from kindred specimens north or west of the Pennsylvania region. From the collection of C. E. Cromley, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. ] “The holes in the ears of the men and women were of different sizes, and served to distinguish the sexes;[14] those in the ears of the women being small, whilst the men sometimes cut a slit almost entirely around the rim of the ear, which ‘they distend and stretch as much as possible,’ so much so, in fact, that the loop hangs almost to the shoulder.[15] Not unfrequently the outer edge of skin is torn apart; and then the Indian is plunged into the depths of humiliation until, by paring the broken ends, they can be made to grow together.[16] Heckwelder[17] reports an instance of an Indian, who was with difficulty prevented from killing himself on account of an accident of this character; and he adds that it was owing to the frequency of such accidents that the custom of stretching the holes in the ears to this enormous extent was falling into desuetude.