Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/272

 258 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

obviously had an attractive as well as protective value, but the women showed no embarrassment, but rather astonishment, when von den Steinen asked them to remove them and give them to him. When they understood that he really wanted them, they removed them and handed them to him with a laugh. This is a case in fact where there is a beginning of clothing without a beginning of modesty, the utility aspect of the cov- ering being up to this point alone in consciousness. The case is not different from that of the Fuegian, who wears an otter skin over his shoulders for warmth, but has no covering about his loins.

But the showing-off instinct, expressing itself in the orna- mentation 'and display of the body, has done more than any- thing else to bring the organs of sex into attention, sometimes by displaying them and sometimes by withdrawing them. The waist, in common with the neck, the wrists, and the ankles, is smaller than the portion of the body immediately below it, and is from this anatomical accident a suitable place to tie orna- ments, and the ornamentation of the body results incidentally in giving some degree of covering to the organs of sex. A mini- mum expression of a connection between ornamentation and sex organs is seen in Australia : "The pubic tassel is a diminutive structure about the size of a five-shilling piece, made of a few short strands of fur-string flattened out into a fan shape and attached to the pubic hairs. As the string, especially at cor- robborree times, is covered with white kaolin or gypsum, it serves as a decoration rather than a covering."' I do not imagine that in this particular case the Australian had in consciousness any connection between this form of ornamentation and sexual attrac- tion. The pubic hairs formed a convenient place to tie the ornament. Photographs of groups of these men show that quite as likely as not the pubic region is not ornamented at all. About half the men in the groups photographed by Spencer and Gillen have this part of the body ornamented or dressed, and an equal number have not. But the sex dances of the Australian tribes are, for our purpose, the most instructive means of attraction

■Spencer and Gillen, loc. cit., p. 572.