page_title: History of nudity
section_title: Traditional cultures
hierarchical_section_title: History of nudity / Traditional cultures
caption_attribution_description: English: Headman Kapika´s wife and daughter Deutsch: Headmann Kapika´s Frau und Tochter
context_page_description: The history of nudity involves social attitudes to nakedness of the human body in different cultures in history. The use of clothing to cover the body is one of the changes that mark the end of the Neolithic, and the beginning of civilizations. Nudity has traditionally been the social norm for both men and women in some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates and it is still common among many indigenous peoples. The need to cover the body is associated with human migration out of the tropics into climates where clothes were needed as protection from sun, heat, and dust in the Middle East; or from cold and rain in Europe and Asia. The first use of animal skins and cloth may have been as adornment, along with body modification, body painting, and jewelry, invented first for other purposes, such as magic, decoration, cult, or prestige, and later found to be practical as well.
  In modern societies, complete nudity in public became increasingly rare as nakedness became associated with lower status, but the mild Mediterranean climate allowed for a minimum of clothing, and in a number of ancient cultures, the athletic and/or cultist nudity of men and boys was a natural concept.
context_section_description: In hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates nudity had been the social norm for both men and women prior to contact with Western cultures or Islam. A few societies well-adapted to life in isolated regions unsuitable for modern development retain their traditional practices and cultures while having some contact with the developed world.
  Many indigenous peoples in Africa and South America train and perform sport competitions naked. For example, the Nuba people in South Sudan and the Xingu tribe in the Amazon region in Brazil wrestle naked. The Dinka, Surma and Mursi peoples in South Sudan and Ethiopia engage in nude stick fights.
  Complete or partial nudity for both men and women is still common for Mursi, Surma, Nuba, Karimojong, Kirdi, Dinka and sometimes Maasai people in Africa, as well as Matses, Yanomami, Suruwaha, Xingu, Matis and Galdu people in South America.
  In some African and Melanesian cultures, men going completely naked except for a string tied about the waist are considered properly dressed for hunting and other traditional group activities. In a number of tribes in the South Pacific island of New Guinea, men use hard gourdlike pods as penis sheaths. Yet a man without this "covering" could be considered to be in an embarrassing state of nakedness. Among the Chumash people of southern California, men were usually naked, and women were often topless. Native Americans of the Amazon Basin usually went nude or nearly nude; in many native tribes, the only clothing worn was some device worn by men to clamp the foreskin shut. However, other similar cultures have had different standards. For example, other native North Americans avoided total nudity, and the Native Americans of the mountains and west of South America, such as the Quechuas, kept quite covered. These taboos normally only applied to adults; Native American children often went naked until puberty if the weather permitted (an 11 or 12-year-old Pocahontas scandalized the Jamestown settlers by appearing at their camp and cartwheeling in the nude).
  Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta (1304–1369) wrote the following about the people of Mali:
  Among their bad qualities are the following. The women servants, slave-girls, and young girls go about in front of everyone naked, without a stitch of clothing on them. Women go into the sultan's presence naked and without coverings, and his daughters also go about naked.
  In 1498, at Trinity Island, Trinidad, Christopher Columbus found the women entirely naked, whereas the men wore a light girdle called guayaco. At the same epoch, on the Para Coast of Brazil, the girls were distinguished from the married women by their absolute nudity. The same absence of costume was observed among the Chaymas of Cumaná, Venezuela, and Du Chaillu noticed the same among the Achiras in Gabon.
caption: Himba women in Namibia
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