[II]
THE ORIGIN OF DRESS
Both he and his people were black as sloes
For the region they lived in was torrid,
And their principal clothes were a ring through the nose
And a patch of red paint on the forehead.
Thomas Hood the Younger.
In seeking the origin of dress we necessarily assume that once upon a time our primitive ancestors did not wear any clothes at all. Even nowadays, in our own country, at sports, in the ball-room, and on the stage, the garments worn, or some of them, may be reduced to the minimum that the rules of Society appear to demand. There are, moreover, two reasons why very early man did not trouble to dress: first of all, he was covered with hair like the majority of mammals; and, secondly, it is more than probable that his home was within the tropics. (See Plate [I]., Frontispiece.) The two ideas are quite compatible, for all the great apes—chimpanzee, orang-utan, and gorilla—which are the nearest relatives of man, have been found in the warmer regions of the world, and are well supplied with hair.
It has long been thought that the cradle of mankind is to be looked for in the south of Asia, and it is a striking fact that of recent years the bones of the earliest known creature that can with certainty be called a man (Pithecanthropus erectus) were discovered in Java.[3] At the same time it appears that Pithecanthropus, although it walked erect, approximated more closely to the apes than does any more recent human being, and in making a restoration of the type in question, one would feel bound to endow it with a coat of hair. This has since been lost, and, according to Darwin, owing to æsthetic reasons, the members of one sex having chosen as mates those of the other who were the least hairy.
Man also has found his way into most parts of the globe, but he has not always acted with regard to dress in the same way in similar climates. The problem, therefore, which we have set ourselves to solve, proves to be less simple than it appeared at the outset, for great use may be made of clothes in one cold country and not in another, while they may be unknown in certain parts of the tropics, and adopted elsewhere within their radius.
Very often when it is sought to explain a matter, it is found that this can be done in two or three different ways, and it is quite possible that all of them may be correct. This fact may with advantage be borne in mind when seeking for the reasons which lead to the adoption of dress, for the first time, by any particular race.
Perhaps it will help us if we pause for a moment to consider why clothes are worn at the present day. There is no doubt but that in the case of many garments their ornamental character, real or supposed, is the first consideration. Others are chosen chiefly for protection and warmth, while, as already indicated, the rest suffice to satisfy the claims of modesty. Although the three reasons are now intimately combined, it is practically certain that any one of them is sufficient to have led to the adoption of clothes in the first place, and as if these were not enough there may be other contributing, if not actual causes.
We may now consider these matters in detail. It would seem from the study of modern peoples, who are still in a very simple state of civilization, as well as from one of the earliest drawings scratched by the cave-men who were contemporary with the mammoth in France, that ornaments are the most primitive part of dress. (See Figure [1] and Plate [II].)