Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 - The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism by Havelock Ellis
page 37 of 511 (07%)
page 37 of 511 (07%)
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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 für 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 |
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