White Shadows in the South Seas by Frederick O'Brien
page 80 of 457 (17%)
page 80 of 457 (17%)
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accentuated hips and waistlines shock the Japanese, whose loose
clothing is the same for men and women, the broader belt and double fold upon the small of the back, the obi, being the only differentiation. Mohammedan women surprised in bathing cover their faces first; the Chinese, the feet. Good Erasmus, that Dutch theologian, said that "angels abhor nakedness." Devout Europeans of his day never saw their own bodies; if they bathed, they wore a garment covering them from head to feet. Thus standards of clothing vary from age to age and from country to country. Missionaries bewilder the savage mind by imposing their own standards of the moment and calling them modesty. The African negro, struggling to harmonize these two ideas, wore a tall silk hat and a pair of slippers as his only garments when he obeyed Livingstone's exhortations to clothe himself in the presence of white women. Vait-hua was all savage; whatever bewilderments the missionaries had brought had faded when dwindling population left the isle to its own people. In the minds of my happy companions at the _vai puna_, modesty had no more to do with clothing than, among us, it had to do with food. The standards of the individual are everywhere formed by the mass-opinion of those about him; I came from my bath, replaced my garments, and felt myself Marquesan. The sensation was false. Savage peoples can never understand our philosophy, our complex springs of action. They may ape our manners, wear our ornaments, and seek our company, but their souls remain indifferent. They laugh when we are stolid. They weep when we are |
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