ed before the house of a man who
had died of diphtheria. This, I was told, was their mourning
dress.... The same custom prevails in other parts of West
Africa."

Modesty is as fickle as fashion and assumes almost as many different
forms as dress itself. In most Australian tribes the women (as well as
the men) go naked, yet in a few they not only wear clothes but go out
of sight to bathe. Stranger still, the Pele islanders were so
innocent of all idea of clothing that when they first saw Europeans
they believed that their clothes were their skins. Nevertheless, the
men and women bathed in different places. Among South American Indians
nudity is the rule, whereas some North American Indians used to place
guards near the swimming-places of the women, to protect them from
spying eyes.

According to Gill (230), the Papuans of Southwestern New Guinea "glory
in their nudeness and consider clothing fit only for women." There are
many places where the women alone were clothed, while in others the
women alone were naked. Mtesa, the King of Uganda, who died in 1884,
inflicted the death penalty on any man who dared to approach him
without having every inch of his legs carefully covered; but the women
who acted as his servants were stark naked (Hellwald, 78).

While the etiquette of modesty is thus subject to an endless variety
of details, every nation and tribe enforces its own ideal of propriety
as the only correct thing. In Tahiti and Tonga it would be considered
highly indecent to go about without being tattooed. Among Samoans and
other Malayans the claims of propriety are satisfied if only the navel
is covered. "The savage tribes of Sumatra and Celebes have a like
feeling about the knee, which is always carefully covered"
(Westermarck, 207). In China it is considered extremely indecent if a
woman allows her bare feet to be seen, even by her husband, and a
similar idea prevails among some Turkish women, who carefully wrap up
their feet before they go to bed (Ploss, I., 344). Hindoo women must
not show their faces, but it is not improper to wear a dress so gauzy
that the whole figure is revealed through it. "In Moruland," says Emin
Bey,

"the women mostly go about absolutely naked, a few only
attaching a leaf behind to their waistband. It is curious to
note, on meeting a bevy of these uncovered beauties carrying
water, that the first thing they do with their free hand is
to cover the