The Masculine Cross

nd female, in variou

wful power upon whom the fruit of the womb depended, and having once fixed itself in the minds of the people, neither priest nor prophet could eradicate it. All that these could do was to spiritualise it into a symbol of devotion to a high religious ideal." Bonwick say

Jewish, but this is altogether wrong; it was extensively practised in Egypt, also by the tribes inhabiting the more southern parts of Africa; in Asia, the Afghans and the Tamils had it, and it has been found in various parts of America, and amongst

om, as a sign of their special religion (or, as Herodotus says, "after the example of their God"), of shaving the hair of their heads in an extraordinary fashion, viz., either on the crown of the head or towards the temples, or else of disfiguring a portion of the beard. Others branded or tattooed the symbol of a particular god on the skin, on the forehead, the arm, the hand. Israel,

original of that nation, but that it was so early among them that the heathen writers had no account of its origin. When anything appeared to them to be thus ancient, they pronounced it to be from the beginning. Herodotus clearly meant this, because we find him questioning whether the Egyptians learnt circumcision from the Ethiopians, or the Ethiopians from the Egyptians, and

He adds that the Ph?nicians and Syrians, who lived in Palestine, were likewise circumcised, but that they borrowed the practice from the Egyptians; and fu

ing of other nations, he says that they were circumcised, after the manner of the Egyptians. Sir J. Marsham is of opinion that the Hebrews bo

other tribes practised the same. The Ismaelites we are told, used to circumcise their children, not on the eighth day, according to the custom of the Jews, but when about twelve or thirteen years old, at which age their father underwent that operation; and the Mahomedans imitate them so far as not to circumcise children before they are able at least distinctly to pronounce that profession of their faith, "there is no God, but God, Mahomet is

on makes the prophet declare it to be "Sonna," which Pocock renders a necessary rite, though Sonna, according to the explanation of Reland, doe

they were marriageable. Belon says the practice prevailed among the Copts; and P. Jovius and Munster say the same of the subjects of Prester John. Sonnini says it was well known that the Egyptian women were accustomed to the practice, but people were not agreed as to the motives which induced them to submit to the operation. Most of those who have written on the subject of female circumcisi

gypt, but in several other countries in the East, where the heat of the climate and other causes may produce too luxuriant a growth of those parts, and this, he adds, he had the more reason to think, since, on consulting several Turks who had settled at Rosetta, respecting the circumcision of their wives, he could obtain from them no other idea but that of these p

to be sent for, and allowed them to examine her at their ease. Their painter made a drawing of the parts after the life, in presence of several Turkish domestics; but he drew with a trembling hand, as they were apprehensive of the consequences it might bring upon them from the Mahometans.

ch every one to whom the inhabitants of Egypt are known, he says, will deem sufficiently bold, not to procure a drawing of a circumcised female, but to have the operation performed under his own eyes. Mr. Fornetti, whose complaisance and intelligence were so frequently of service to him, readi

ears old, and of the Egyptian race. He was much surprised at observing a thick, flabby, fleshy e

, cut off the excrescence just described with an old razor. The girl did not give any signs of feeling much pain. A few ashes taken up betw

illages, crying in the streets, "Who wants a good circumciser?" A superstitious tradition has marked the commencement of the rise of the Nile as the period at which it ought to be performed; and accordingly, besides the other difficulties he had to surmount,

tificialis labiorum pudendi, capell? mamillis simillima." The part in question, locally called "Tu," must, from the earliest years, be manipulated by professional old women, as is the bosom among the embryo prostitutes of China. If

een no more in it than this, that they who were of the same faith should have a certain character whereby they should be known, it would have been a wise appointment. The mark seems to be fitly chosen for the purpose; because it was a sign that no man would have made upon himself and upon his children, unless it were for the sake of faith and religion. It was not a brand upon the arm, or an incision in the thigh, b

f Como, insisted in the same manner upon this unseemly custom. This same ceremony was not only used by the Habisenes, but was also familiar among other people of Africa, the Egyptians, and the Arabians themselves. For they cut away from the female infants something which they think to be an indecency and superfluity of nature. Jovius calls it Carunniculam, or a little piece of flesh; Golius, an oblong excrescence. The Arabians, by a particular