History and culture (english)

Septum piercings were popular among certain Native American peoples in history; the Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, for example, had such piercings. Septum piercings are also sometimes performed on bulls as part of the process to break them for the farm. This process uses a hinged brass ring with sharpened ends to facilitate insertion. Afterwards, the open ends are held together by means of a screw.
Paul King adds,
New Guinea is perhaps most famous for septum piercings. The Kangi of New Guinea pierce the septum using a bat bone and sweet potato. During the initiation, the face is blackened with charcoal. The hair on the head is plucked out, all but a tuft. This makes him safe from the magic of women and impervious to death and pain.
Much tradition and myth is steeped into the Kiman-Papuans of South Irian Jaya. Progressive feasts are offered especially for the male children at stages in the process of loosening connections with their mother. At hair cutting and earlobe, nostril and nasal septum fests, holes are made to wear the ornaments that signify the growing boy’s status as a man in the community—for example, the pig’s bone through the septum shows that he is a headhunter, and the blood that flows from the piercing is supposed to be womb blood that must be removed symbolically.

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