may not be correct. The feeling of one
accustomed to be naked, if his attention is called to it, cannot be
paralleled with that of one accustomed to be clothed, if he finds
himself unclothed. The Nile negroes and the Masai manifest a "complete
absence of any conventional ideas of decency." The men, at least, have
no feeling of shame in connection with the pudenda. Complete nudity of
males, where it occurs in Africa, seems almost always traceable to
Hamitic influence.[1445]

+461. Dress and decency.+ If the description of the Tyrrhenians given by
Athenaeus[1446] can be taken as real, they would have to be classed
amongst the people who had no notions of decency. Curr says of the
Australians[1447] that the tribes who wear clothing are more decent than
those who are naked. The women of the former retire to bathe and the men
respect their privacy. Evidently the dress makes the decency. If there
was no dress, there would be no need to retire and no privacy. Wilson
and Felkin[1448] say of the negroes that their "morals" are inversely as
their dress. The Australians practice no indecent dances.[1449] The
central Australians hold a man in contempt if he shows excessive
amorousness.[1450] The natives of New Britain are naked, but modest and
chaste. "Nudity rather checks than stimulates." The same is observed in
English New Guinea. The men wear a bandage which does not conceal, but
they attach to this all the importance which we attach to complete
dress, and they speak of others who do not wear it as "naked wild
men."[1451] In the Palau Islands women may punish summarily, even with
death, a man who approaches their bathing place, but that place is,
therefore, the safest for secret meetings.[1452] The Dyaks, except the
hill tribes, conceal the body with care, but they do not observe a
careful sex taboo.[1453] We are told of the Congo tribes, some of whom
wear nothing, that there exists "a marked appreciation of the sentiment
of decency and shame as applied to private actions."[1454] Some of the
women repelled the advances of men in Brunache's expedition.[1455]
Nachtigal[1456] found the Somrai in Baghirmi modest and reserved. They
proved "the well-known fact that decorum and chastity are independent of
dress." On the Uganda railroad, near Lake Victoria, coal-black people
are to be seen, of whom both sexes are entirely naked, except ornaments.
They are "the most moral people in Uganda." The Nile negroes and Masai
are naked. In the m