Note 3 — Language
Reading edition
In connection with mourning, I should also mention a curious custom, which I understand is common, though not universal, for a woman who has lost a child, and especially a first-born or very clear child, to amputate the top end of one of her fingers, up to the first joint, with an adze. Having done this once for one child, she will possibly do it again for another child; and a woman has been seen with three fingers mutilated in this way.3