The King of Mandingo allowed no women,
not even princesses, to approach him unless they were naked (Hellwald,
77-8). Dubois (I., 265) says that in some of the southern provinces of
India the women of certain castes must uncover their body from the
head to the girdle when speaking to a man: "It would be thought a want
of politeness and good breeding to speak to men with that part of the
body clothed."
In his travels among the Cameroon negroes Zoeller (II., 185) came
across a strange bit of religious etiquette in regard to nudity. The
women there wear nothing but a loin cloth, except in case of a death,
when, like ourselves, they appear all in black--with a startling
difference, however. One day, writes Zoeller,
"I was astounded to see a number of women and girls
strolling about stark naked before the house of a man who
had died of diphtheria. This, I was told, was their mourning
dress.... The same custom prevails in other parts of West
Africa."
Modesty is as fickle as fashion and assumes almost as many different
forms as dress itself. In most Australian tribes the women (as well as
the men) go naked, yet in a few they not only wear clothes but go out
of sight to bathe. Stranger still, the Pele islanders were so
innocent of all idea of clothing that when they first saw Europeans
they believed that their clothes were their skins.
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