Human Tails.--The prolongation of the coccyx sometimes takes the
shape of a caudal extremity in man. Broca and others claim that
the sacrum and the coccyx represent the normal tail of man, but
examples are not infrequent in which there has been a fleshy or
bony tail appended to the coccygeal region. Traditions of tailed
men are old and widespread, and tailed races were supposed to
reside in almost every country. There was at one time an ancient
belief that all Cornishmen had tails, and certain men of Kent
were said to have been afflicted with tails in retribution for
their insults to Thomas a Becket. Struys, a Dutch traveler in
Formosa in the seventeenth century, describes a wild man caught
and tied for execution who had a tail more than a foot long,
which was covered with red hair like that of a cow.
The Niam Niams of Central Africa are reported to have tails
smooth and hairy and from two to ten inches long. Hubsch of
Constantinople remarks that both men and women of this tribe have
tails. Carpus, or Berengarius Carpensis, as he is called, in one
of his Commentaries said that there were some people in Hibernia
with long tails, but whether they were fleshy or cartilaginous
could not be known, as the people could not be approached.
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