The purpose of these objects, beyond covering the private parts of the female sex, is not known. They may have been ceremonial, relating, under certain circumstances, to particular conditions of the sex, or they may have been only variations of the somewhat similar covers used by the male aborigine. They bear some resemblance to the _Ceintures de Chasteté_, specimens of which are privately shown at the Musée de Cluny at Paris. These are said to have been invented by Françoise de Carara, viguier imperial (provost) of Padua, Italy, near the end of the fourteenth century. He applied it to all the women of his seraglio. He was beheaded A. D. 1405, by a decree of the Senate of Venice, for his many acts of cruelty. The palace of St. Mark contained for a long time a box or case of these ceintures with their locks attached, which were represented as _des pieces de conviction_ of this monster.[266] Voltaire describes his hero "_qui tient sous la clef, la vertu de sa femme_." [Illustration: PLATE 18. FOLIUM VITUS ("FIG LEAVES"). Terra-cotta covers, "tunga." Aborigines of Brazil. Cat. Nos. 59089 and 36542, U. S. N. M.] [Illustration: MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF THE SWASTIKA.] PARAGUAY. Dr. Schliemann reports that a traveler of the Berlin Ethnological Museum obtained a pumpkin bottle from the tribe of Lenguas in Paraguay which bore the imprint of the Swastika scratched upon its surface, and that he had recently sent it to the Royal Museum at Berlin. III.--FORMS ALLIED TO THE SWASTIKA. MEANDERS, OGEES, AND SPIRALS, BENT TO THE LEFT AS WELL AS TO THE RIGHT. There are certain forms related to the normal Swastika and greatly resembling it--meanders, ogees, the triskelion, tetraskelion, and five and six armed spirals or volutes. This has been mentioned above (page 768), and some of the varieties are shown in fig. 13. These related forms have been found in considerable numbers in America, and this investigation would be incomplete if they were omitted. It has been argued (p. 839) that the Swastika was not evolved from the meander, and this need not be reargued.