Dress, drinks, and drums : further studies of savages and sex / by Ernest Crawley ; edited by Theodore Besterman.

  • Ernest Crawley
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dress, drinks, and drums : further studies of savages and sex / by Ernest Crawley ; edited by Theodore Besterman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    starting and so straining itselfJ And it seems pro- bable that there is a connexion between the earlier use of the ligature and the prevalent custom of wear- ing metal rings or wire as a decoration. Men and women of the Watusi wear round the ankles innumer- able coils of iron wire, representing a weight of many pounds. The women wear heavy bracelets of brass.^ It is possible, also, that in certain cases dress itself might have been developed from the same source. Thus, when we compare the following type of body- dress with the frequent use, in earlier stages, of a pliant bough or cane as a girdle, we can imagine the possibility that the invention of the sheet form of covering might have been delayed by the extension of the bandage form. The garment, termed lumiet^ of the Sakarang women is a series of cane hoops covered with innumerable small brass links. The series en- casing the waist fits close. It sometimes extends right up to the breasts. The Ulu Ai and Ngkari women wear eight to ten parallel rows of large brass rings round the waist. They are strung on rattans, and fixed to a cane network inside them. Dense coils of thick brass wire are also worn on the legs.^ But the ligature as a primary stage of sheet-clothing might have developed merely by adding to its breadth. Given a girdle, we might suppose a natural enlarge- ment of its depth. And among the various bands used by the lowest peoples there is a gradation of the kind. The armlets of the Indians of Guiana are broad cotton bands or string.* Yet there is no evidence * W. \V. Skeat, Malay Magic (1900), p. 335, * L. Declc, The Watusi, Journal of the Anthropological Institute (1894), xxili. 425. ' Low-Roth, op. cit., xxii. 40-41. •» Sir E. F. Im Thurn, op. cit., p. 197.
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