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Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, because of the milk1 they drink; and this is how they get it: taking tubes of bone very much like flutes, they insert these into the genitalia of the mares and blow into them, some blowing while others milk. According to them, their reason for doing this is that blowing makes the mare's veins swell and her udder drop.
1 Herodotus means that the slaves are blinded to prevent them stealing the best of the milk. Probably the story of blind slaves arises from some Scythian name for slaves, misunderstood by the Greeks.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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