Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/273

 PSYCHOLOGY OF MODESTY AND CLOTHIA'G 259

which they employ. These dances generally precede the lend- ing of wives and other periodic relaxations to sexual restraint which characterize these people, and which arc thought by some students to be conclusive evidence of a previous state of sexual promiscuity. The object of the dances is, of course, sexual sug- gestion, and the interesting feature to which I refer is the fact that in some forms of the dance the organs of sex are displayed, and in others they are concealed, and with precisely the same suggestive effect. The sex dance of the central Australians described by Spencer and Gillen is an example of the most common general type of this dance : " Each one [of the young women] is decorated with a double horseshoe-shaped band of white pipe clay which extends across the front of each thigh and the base of the abdomen. A flexible stick is held behind the neck and one end grasped by each hand. Standing in a group [before the men] the women sway slightly from side to side, quivering in a most remarkable fashion, as they do so, the mus- cles of the thighs and of the base of the abdomen. The object of the decoration and movement is evident, and at this period of the ceremonies a general interchange, and also a lending of women, takes place, and visiting natives are provided with tem- porary wives." ■ In other Australian tribes, at any rate, the men perform a suggestive sex dance, of which the women are spec- tators, and a similar pairing off follows. In contrast with this, we find that precisely the contrary means is used to produce the same suggestive effect. Bonwick says that the Tasmanian and Australian women wore a covering of leaves or feathers in the sex dance, and removed it directly afterward.' And Roth says of the Queenslanders : " Phallocrypts, or penis-concealers, only used by the males at corrobborrees and other public rejoicings, are either formed of pearl shell or opossum string." ^ And again : It is needless to point out that with both sexes the privates are only covered on special public occasions, or when in close proximity to white settlements." "■ We saw a moment ago in the "uluri" of the Brazilian women a use of clothing witiiout

^Loc. cit., p. 381. '^Loc. cil., p. 113.

'Zof. «■/., p. 38. - •■Ibid., Hi,.