Report from India

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"Female Eunuchs in India," Lancet 2 (May 20, 1843) 262.

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EVERY one knows the cruel acts to which Oriental jealousy has given 
rise with respect to the male attendants on the harems of the 
great; but few, perhaps, are aware that in India even women are 
subject to a process, not of emasculation, but (if we may coin a 
word) efæ mination. Dr. Roberts, the author of a memoir of a 
journey from Delhi to Bombay, says that near Feridabad he was met 
by an eunuch fakir and three singing girls, the latter of whom 
executed several dances, accompanying them by their voices. The 
lofty stature, harsh voices, and bold masculine movements of the 
damsels so terrified the worthy doctor, that he at first thought 
them to be Thugs in disguise; but when he had ascertained their 
true sex, curiosity overcame his terrors, and, by dint of a little 
persuasion and sundry rupees, he prevailed on the ladies to visit 
him at his tent, and exhibit their physical peculiarities. They 
appeared to have no development either of the larynx or nipples; 
the vaginal orifice was obliterated without even the trace of a 
scar, while the meatus urinarius, on the contrary, was salient and 
exposed; there was no mons veneris, and, in facts a complete 
atrophy of the cellular tissue, not only in the genital but other 
parts also of the body, and no hair whatever on the parts usually 
so covered, the buttocks and thighs were not more spread than in 
the male; there was no trace of, or substitute for, the menstrual 
discharge; nor had the individuals any venereal desires. Large, 
robust,and muscular, they enjoyed excellent health, being about 
twenty-five years old, and their chief occupation was that of 
itinerating the villages,dancing, singing, and circumcising the 
male infants of the native population. They had no recollection of 
having undergone any operation, nor could Dr. Doherty find any 
indications whereby to judge of the manner in which they had been 
unsexed; but they said (what he knew not himself and could not 
ascertain from others) that many females similarly situated were to 
be found at Delhi and Agra. An old Brahmin, at Indore, in Malwah, 
afterwards told Dr. R. that these women, called hedgirahs, are 
punctured in the ovaries with needles, dipped in the green fruity 
juice of the tree called bhel-poul.