468. Bathing. Customs of nudity. The natives of Rotuma never bathe without the loin cloth. To do so is thought low conduct.[1511] The people of Ponape rise early and bathe, the sexes always separating unless married.[1512] Bock[1513] says that the Dyaks, without hesitation, threw off their garments and bathed in the presence of himself and Malays, the sexes together. The sexes of the Yuroks in California bathe apart and the women never go into the sea without some garment.[1514] The women of the Mandans had a bathing place. Armed sentinels were set to prevent men from approaching it.[1515] In Hindostan the sexes now bathe together at certain times and places with very little clothing. Wilkins[1516] says, "I have never seen the slightest impropriety of gesture on these occasions." Although at an earlier period some clothing was worn in bed, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in Europe, both sexes slept nude. Better beds and separate bed clothes led to this custom, because it was such a relief to take off woolen and fur worn in the daytime. Then nudity became familiar, and the concealment taboo was broken down.[1517] The cities were soon compelled to pass ordinances forbidding any one to appear on the streets nude.[1518] In Denmark the historian tells us that people slept naked because linen was dear, and that the custom lasted into the seventeenth century. In the sixteenth century nobles began to wear nightshirts.[1519] Upon the entry of kings into cities, until the sixteenth century, mythological subjects were represented in the streets by nude women.[1520] From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries it was the custom that girls served knights in the bath.[1521] Through the Middle Ages the sexes bathed together, and not innocently.[1522] The Germans were very fond of bathing and every village had its public bath house. The utility and pleasure of bathing were so great that bathing was forbidden as an ecclesiastical penance.[1523] "A practice of men and women bathing together was condemned by Hadrian, and afterwards by Alexander Severus, but was only finally suppressed by Constantine."[1524] The Council of Trullanum in 692 forbade the sexes to bathe together.[1525] Other councils repeated the prohibition. This shows that Constantine did not suppress the custom, nor did any other civil or ecclesiastical authority do so. The ecclesiastics in Germany, from the eighth century, condemned the custom of the sexes bathing together, but never could control it.[1526] Christian men and women bathed together at Tyre in the time of the crusades.[1527] All the authorities, beginning with Erasmus (in the Colloquy, Diversoria), agree that bathing at a common bath house was abandoned on account of syphilis. Leprosy, which was brought from the East by the crusaders, had had less effect in the same direction. In the sixteenth century there were other epidemics, and wood became dear.[1528] The use of body linen and bed linen which could be washed made bathing less essential to comfort and health.[1529] The habit of seeing nudity was broken, and as it became unusual it became offensive. Thus a concealment taboo grew up again. Rudeck[1530] is convinced by these facts that "it was not modesty which made dress and public decency, but that dress and the decay of objectionable customs made modesty." He seems to be astonished at this conclusion and a little afraid of it. It is undoubtedly correct. The whole history of dress depends on it.
469. Bathing in rivers, springs, and public bath houses. In the fifteenth century it became the custom to bathe in rivers or at mineral springs. Wealth, luxury, fashion, and new forms of vice attended this change.[1531] The convents of the fifteenth century are described as places of debauch.[1532] An English globe trotter of the beginning of the seventeenth century describes the baths of Baden near Zurich, where the old custom of the sexes bathing together had been modified somewhat, but only for married women.[1533] If the custom of bathing together does not still exist throughout Northern Europe, it must have been abolished within a few years. Retzius[1534] describes it as existing in Finland in 1878, and many travelers have described the village bath houses of Northern Russia and Scandinavia. Retzius says that the bath house is a kind of sanctuary. Any misdemeanor committed there is considered far more wicked than the same fault elsewhere. Here we see the mores raising a special conventionalization to protect a custom which is expedient, but which transgresses the usual taboo. The fact is that the complete taboo on nudity in Central Europe is not over two centuries old. By itself, nudity was not regarded as shameful or indecent. Therefore in the bath, where it was in order, it was disregarded, just as now a workmen's dress, an athlete's dress, or a bathing dress is disregarded. During the centuries when the ecclesiastical authorities endeavored in vain to stop the sexes from bathing together, it must be that public opinion did not recognize in that usage any serious evil which called for repression. The English now express surprise that the sexes at American watering places go into the sea together, to which Americans attach no importance at all. If Americans bathed in English bathing dresses the sexes would speedily separate.
470. Nudity. In early Christian drama Christ was represented by a naked youth. Then he was represented by a youth who wore a breech cloth only. In the sixteenth century, at Naples, in a representation of the creation of Adam and Eve, the actors had only the privates covered. The stage fell and many were hurt, which was held to show God's displeasure at the show. The flagellants in the theater, in France, were represented naked, as penitents.[1535]
471. Alleged motives of concealment taboo. Herodotus says of the Lydians and almost all barbarians that they considered it shameful for one man to be seen by another naked.[1536] The Jewish sect, the Essenes, concealed part of the body from the sun, as the "all-seeing eye of God," even in the bath. The Jew might not uncover the body in the face of the temple. The rules of the Essenes for bodily necessities were such that those necessities could not be satisfied on the Sabbath.[1537] At Rome "oppedere, mingere, cacare towards persons or statues belonged to the grossest marks of contempt, and were so employed more than we think."[1538] Patursson[1539] bathed with aborigines near the mouth of the Ob. They would not bare the body below the waist and were shocked at his immodesty because he was not so scrupulous.
472. Obscenity. Another topic in this group of subjects, obscenity, is still harder to treat within the limits set by our mores. It offers still more astounding proofs that the folkways can make anything "right," and that our strongest sentiments of approval or abhorrence are given to us by the age and group in which we live. The tabooed parts of the body are not to be seen. It is obscenity when they are exposed to sight. We have already noticed, under the head of decency, a great range of conventions in regard to things and acts which are set aside from all the common activities of life. We have seen that there is no ultimate and rational definition of the things to be tabooed, no universal agreement as to what they are, no philosophical principle by which they are selected; that the customs have had no uniformity or consistency, and that those usages which we might suppose to be referable to a taboo of obscenity have an entirely different motive, while the notion of obscenity does not exist. There is no "natural" and universal instinct, by collision with which some things are recognized as obscene. We shall find that the things which we regard as obscene either were not, in other times and places, so regarded, any more than we so regard bared face and hands, or else that, from ancient usage, the exhibition was covered by a convention in protection of what is archaic or holy, or dramatic, or comical. In primitive times goblinism and magic covered especially the things which later became obscene. Facts were accepted with complete naïveté. The fashion of thinking was extremely realistic. The Japanese now cannot understand how facts can be made shameful. They have very exact and authoritative conventions which every one must obey, but the conventions are practical and realistic. They serve purposes; they do not create an unreal world of convention.[1540] This is the extreme view of realism and nature. As has been shown above, however, so soon as objects were attached to the body for any purpose whatever, the conventional view that bodies so distinguished were alone right and beautiful was started, and all the rest of the convention of ornament and dress followed.
473. Obscene representations for magic. The Indians on the Shingu river, Brazil, wear little or no clothing.[1541] They have full suits for dancing, but the tabooed organs are represented on the outside of these artificially and of exaggerated size. Evidently it was not the purpose of the dress to conceal organs the sight of which was tabooed.[1542] In Central Borneo, in order to drive off evil spirits, rough figures of human beings are cut in wood, the tabooed organs being exaggerated. Those organs are the real amulets which exorcise demons, for they are often cut on the timbers of the houses without the rest of the figure. Then, by further derivation, such representations became purely ornamental on houses, weapons, etc.[1543] The Egyptians used representations of what were later tabooed organs as hieroglyphics, and in their conversation admitted no taboo. Pictures in the tombs of the Twentieth Dynasty (1180-1050 b.c.) show the lack of any taboo, and there are inscriptions by them which show an absence of any restriction on realism.[1544] This is evidently the naïve realism of children who have not yet learned any conventions. Reproduction and growth have direct connection with food supply, and abundance of reproduction means joy of life and merriment, with good cheer for men. Consequently the most matter-of-fact interest of man was intertwined with all the reproductive energies in nature. The popular and comic mimus of the Greeks is traced back to ritual acts of magic, in which the corn demons or growth demons are represented at work, making the reproduction and growth of the crops. The ritual was sympathetic magic, and it was securing the food supply. What was desired was success in agriculture, and the husbandman in his choice of rites, symbols, and emblems was entirely realistic. The growth demons, when they appear in art, are vulgar figures of an exaggerated sensual type. They were meant to suggest reproductive vigor, exuberance, and abundance. The tabooed organs are represented in various ways, but always obtrusively and with exaggeration. The demons wear an artificial phallus outside the dress, which fits the figure tightly.[1545] The ritual developed into the Dionysiac rites and orgies, the main idea of which was to rejoice with the reproductive agencies of nature, to present them dramatically to the mind, and to stimulate hope and industry. In Greece these primitive rites of sympathetic magic in agriculture developed into the comic drama, and the demons became stereotyped figures of comedy, always recognizable by their masks (faces of a vulgar type), exaggerated hips, and above all by the phallus. The demon turned into the clown or buffoon, but the phallus was kept as an emblem of his rôle, like the later cap and bells of the fool, until the fifth century of the Christian era in the West, and until the fall of the Byzantine empire. In the Hellenistic period the clown took the rôle of the Olympic god, and wore the phallus. The Phlyakes in lower Italy had the same emblem and it was worn in the atellan plays of the Romans.[1546] In the early Christian centuries the Christian martyr wore the emblem in the comedy, since that rôle was always represented by the simpleton or clown. Ecclesiastical persons also were represented with it, since the buffoon always wore it, whatever his rôle. It also passed to the karagoz (shadow play) of the Turks and to the pantin puppets of the Javans. In the comedy of Hindostan the phallus disappeared.[1547] In Egypt, at least as late as the first half of the nineteenth century, a masked figure marched at the head of the bride's procession at a wedding with the same symbol and indecent gestures.[1548]
474. Infibulation. It appears that athletes in Greece bound the organ and tied it up to the girdle in a manner closely resembling the primitive suspensorium. The comedians wore a leathern apron with a large false organ of red leather on the outside. It became a sign of the trade of boxers, athletes, gymnasts, and comedians to bind the organ and tie it up, whereby it was twisted into a horn shape. The purpose was to protect it from injury, and it furnishes suggestion as to the purpose of the primitive suspensorium. The concealment was very imperfect and the notion grew up that the part concealed ought to be concealed, but no more. The Romans thought it indecent to lack the foreskin, and the Jews endeavored to conceal this lack. Infibulation was practiced in two ways,—by a ring through the prepuce or by a bandage around it. It was thought to prevent vice and preserve the voice of prophets, singers, etc. A seventeenth-century traveler, Walter Schultze of Haarlem, is quoted, who describes an ascetic sect in Persia who renounced wine, lived on gifts, and foreswore marriage. They were infibulated with a ring.[1549]
475. Was the phallus offensive? For more than two thousand years the most obscene figure we know was used by the clown in popular farce and by athletes as an emblem of their profession. It raised a laugh, but was not otherwise noticed. An interesting question arises whether there ever was any protest against it, or any evidence that anybody thought it offensive. The passage in Aristophanes' Clouds (530) has been so interpreted. It appears, however, that in that passage the author is comparing his comedy with that of others. He has admitted, he says, no low tricks appealing to vulgar tastes, no phallus which would make the boys laugh, no lascivious dance, no scurrilous stories, and no "knock-down business." This is not a criticism of the phallus on grounds of obscenity, but on grounds of buffoonery. In the Acharnians (243 and 259) are matter-of-fact references to the phallus worn by the actor, as he might have referred to his mantle. Other cases occur which are not so outspoken. In the Lysistrata the mention of the phallus in connection with the motive of the play is of the last degree of vulgarity. We cannot find that any Greeks, Romans, or Byzantines protested against these exhibitions of the phallus, which to us are so obscene. The mimus was the lowest and most popular kind of theatrical exhibition, and it was in it that the use of the phallus was most constant. Even Christian preachers who denounced the mimus as demoralizing, and who specified in detail what they found objectionable in it, never mention the display of obscene things. All people were accustomed to the phallus as the archaic symbol of the servants of Dionysus.[1550] Christian preachers would have made no allowance for it on that account,—rather the contrary,—and they would not have refrained from objecting to it on account of the archaic, or artistic, or traditional element, if they had disapproved of it. It must be that everybody was indifferent to it.
The twin pillars which were common in front of Semitic temples and which stood before the temple at Jerusalem are interpreted as phalli.[1551]