that once on a time long ago there were two young women who were friends together.  It is told that there were also two youths who tried to woo the two maidens, but they were not able even so much as to talk with them.  After awhile the youths began to suspect something wrong.  So once during the summer, when the two maidens started away to peel off bark, the youths followed, staying just far enough behind to keep them in sight.  While the girls were peeling the bark, the youths kept themselves hidden.  After awhile they no longer heard the sound of the maidens at work.  Whereupon they began to creep up to where they were.  When they drew nigh, behold, the maidens were in the act of taking off their clothes.  The first to disrobe flung herself down on the ground and lay there.  ‘Pray, what are these girls going to do?’ was the feeling in the hearts of the youths.  And to their amazement the girls began to lie with each other.  Thereupon the youths ran to where the girls were.  She who was lying on top instantly fell over backward.  Her clitoris was standing out and had a queer shape; it was like a turtle’s penis.  Thereupon the maidens began to plead with the youths:  ‘Oh, don’t tell on us!’ they said.  ’Truly it is not of our own free desire that we have done this thing We have done it under the influence of some unknown being.’  It is said that afterward one of the maidens became big with child.  In the course of time, she gave birth, and the child was like a soft-shell turtle.”

In Bali, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), homosexuality is almost as common among women as among men, though it is more secretly exercised; the methods of gratification adopted are either digital or lingual, or else by bringing the parts together (tribadism).

Baumann, who noted inversion among the male negro population of Zanzibar, finds that it is also not rare among women.  Although Oriental manners render it impossible for such women to wear men’s clothes openly, they do so in private, and are recognized by other women by their man-like bearing, as also by the fact that women’s garments do not suit them.  They show a preference for masculine occupations, and seek sexual satisfaction among women who have the same inclinations, or else among normal women, who are won over by presents or other means.  In addition to tribadism or cunnilinctus, they sometimes use an ebony or ivory phallus, with a kind of glans at one end, or sometimes at both ends; in the latter case it can be used by two women at once, and sometimes it has a hole bored through it by which warm water can be injected; it is regarded as an Arab invention, and is sometimes used by normal women shut up in harems, and practically deprived of sexual satisfaction.[151]