This Custom Gives All The Batoka
An Uncouth, Old-Man-Like Appearance.
Their laugh is hideous,
yet they are so attached to it that even Sebituane was unable
to eradicate the practice.
He issued orders that none of the children
living under him should be subjected to the custom by their parents,
and disobedience to his mandates was usually punished with severity;
but, notwithstanding this, the children would appear in the streets
without their incisors, and no one would confess to the deed.
When questioned respecting the origin of this practice, the Batoka reply
that their object is to be like oxen, and those who retain their teeth
they consider to resemble zebras. Whether this is the true reason or not,
it is difficult to say; but it is noticeable that the veneration for oxen
which prevails in many tribes should here be associated with hatred
to the zebra, as among the Bakwains; that this operation
is performed at the same age that circumcision is in other tribes;
and that here that ceremony is unknown. The custom is so universal
that a person who has his teeth is considered ugly, and occasionally,
when the Batoka borrowed my looking-glass, the disparaging remark
would be made respecting boys or girls who still retained their teeth,
"Look at the great teeth!" Some of the Makololo give a more facetious
explanation of the custom: they say that the wife of a chief
having in a quarrel bitten her husband's hand, he, in revenge,
ordered her front teeth to be knocked out, and all the men in the tribe
followed his example; but this does not explain why they afterward
knocked out their own.
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