" During a Samoan marriage-ceremony the
friends of the bride "took up stones and beat themselves until
their heads were bruised and bleeding." In Australia a novitiate
at the ceremony of manhood drank a mouthful of blood from the
veins of the warrior who was to be his sponsor.
At the death of their kings the Lacedemonians met in large
numbers and tore the flesh from their foreheads with pins and
needles. It is said that when Odin was near his death he ordered
himself to be marked with a spear; and Niort, one of his
successors, followed the example of his predecessor. Shakespeare
speaks of "such as boast and show their scars." In the olden
times it was not uncommon for a noble soldier to make public
exhibition of his scars with the greatest pride; in fact, on the
battlefield they invited the reception of superficial disfiguring
injuries, and to-day some students of the learned universities of
Germany seem prouder of the possession of scars received in a
duel of honor than in awards for scholastic attainments.
Lichtenstein tells of priests among the Bechuanas who made long
cuts from the thigh to the knee of each warrior who slew an enemy
in battle. Among some tribes of the Kaffirs a kindred custom was
practiced; and among the Damaras, for every wild animal a young
man destroyed his father made four incisions on the front of his
son's body.
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