Bancroft recites that family-marks of this nature existed among the Cuebas of Central America, refusal being tantamount to rebellion.

Schomburgk tells that among the Arawaks, after a Mariquawi dance, so great is their zeal for honorable scars, the blood will run down their swollen calves, and strips of skin and muscle hang from the mangled limbs.

Similar practices rendered it necessary for the United States Government to stop some of the ceremonial dances of the Indians under their surveillance.
A peculiar custom among savages is the amputation of a finger as a sacrifice to a deity.

In the tribe of the Dakotas the relatives of a dead chief pacified his spirit by amputating a finger.

In a similar way, during his initiation, the young Mandan warrior, "holding up the little finger of his left hand to the Great Spirit," ...