FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50  
51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   >>   >|  
hey only keep their legs well together when they sit or kneel." (E.T. Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, 1872, p. 66.) Of the Naga women of Assam it is said: "Of clothing there was not much to see; but in spite of this I doubt whether we could excel them in true decency and modesty. Ibn Muhammed Wali had already remarked in his history of the conquest of Assam (1662-63), that the Naga women only cover their breasts. They declare that it is absurd to cover those parts of the body which everyone has been able to see from their births, but that it is different with the breasts, which appeared later, and are, therefore, to be covered. Dalton (_Journal of the Asiatic Society_, Bengal, 41, 1, 84) adds that in the presence of strangers Naga women simply cross their arms over their breasts, without caring much what other charms they may reveal to the observer. As regards some clans of the naked Nagas, to whom the Banpara belong, this may still hold good." (K. Klemm, "Peal's Ausflug nach Banpara," _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 5, p. 334.) "In Ceylon, a woman always bathes in public streams, but she never removes all her clothes. She washes under the cloth, bit by bit, and then slips on the dry, new cloth, and pulls out the wet one from underneath (much in the same sliding way as servant girls and young women in England). This is the common custom in India and the Malay States. The breasts are always bare in their own houses, but in the public roads are covered whenever a European passes. The vulva is never exposed. They say that a devil, imagined as a white and hairy being, might have intercourse with them." (Private communication.) In Borneo, "the _sirat_, called _chawal_ by the Malays, is a strip of cloth a yard wide, worn round the loins and in between the thighs, so as to cover the pudenda and perinaeum; it is generally six yards or so in length, but the younger men of the present generation use as much as twelve or fourteen yards (sometimes even more), which they twist and coil with great precision round and round their body, until the waist and stomach are fully enveloped in its folds." (H. Ling Roth, "Low's Natives of Borneo," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1892, p. 36.) "In their own houses in the depths of the forest the Dwarfs are said to n
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50  
51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

breasts

 
Journal
 

covered

 

houses

 

Bengal

 

Banpara

 
public
 

Borneo

 

Dalton

 
States

exposed

 
imagined
 

European

 

passes

 
Dwarfs
 
underneath
 
England
 

common

 

custom

 
servant

sliding

 

forest

 

chawal

 

Anthropological

 

generation

 

present

 

twelve

 
fourteen
 

precision

 

enveloped


stomach
 
Natives
 
younger
 

Malays

 

depths

 
called
 
intercourse
 

Private

 

communication

 

Institute


perinaeum

 
generally
 

length

 

pudenda

 

thighs

 

washes

 

history

 
conquest
 

remarked

 
modesty