"
In his work on German Africa (II., 123) Zoeller says that in Togoland
"the young girls did not hesitate in the least to remove
their only article of clothing, a narrow strip of cloth, rub
themselves with a native soap and then take a dip in the
lagoon, before the eyes of white men as well as black."
A page would be required merely to enumerate the tribes in Africa,
Australia, and South America which never wear any clothing.
Max Buchner (352-4) gives a graphic description (1878) of the nude
female surf swimmers in the Hawaiian Islands. Nor is this indifference
to nudity manifested only by these primitive races. In Japan, to the
present day, men and women bathe in the same room, separated merely by
a partition, two or three feet high.[8] Zoeller relates of the Cholos
of Ecuador (_P. and A_., 364) that "men and women bathe together in
the rivers with a naivete surpassing that of the South Sea Islanders."
A writer in the _Ausland_ (1870, p. 294) reports that in Paraguay he
saw the women washing their only dress, and while they waited for the
sun to dry it, they stood by naked calmly smoking their cigars.
But natural indifference to nudity is the least of the curiosities of
modesty. Sometimes nakedness is actually prescribed by law or by
strict etiquette. In Rohl all women who are not Arabic are forbidden
to wear clothing of any sort.
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