They had a religious origin,
having been designed to propitiate the gods of deformity and disease. In
former times it had been the custom to make expeditions over the ranges,
and capture the ugliest of Chowbok's ancestors whom they could find, in
order to sacrifice them in the presence of these deities, and thus avert
ugliness and disease from the Erewhonians themselves. It had been
whispered (but my informant assured me untruly) that centuries ago they
had even offered up some of their own people who were ugly or out of
health, in order to make examples of them; these detestable customs,
however, had been long discontinued; neither was there any present
observance of the statues.
I had the curiosity to inquire what would be done to any of Chowbok's
tribe if they crossed over into Erewhon. I was told that nobody knew,
inasmuch as such a thing had not happened for ages. They would be too
ugly to be allowed to go at large, but not so much so as to be criminally
liable. Their offence in having come would be a moral one; but they
would be beyond the straightener's art. Possibly they would be consigned
to the Hospital for Incurable Bores, and made to work at being bored for
so many hours a day by the Erewhonian inhabitants of the hospital, who
are extremely impatient of one another's boredom, but would soon die if
they had no one whom they might bore--in fact, that they would be kept as
professional borees.
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