After they had gazed at it for a time, most
began to giggle and laugh; some by their air and gestures clearly
showed their disgust; all found that it was not aesthetic to paint
a naked woman, though in Nature, nakedness was in no way
offensive to them. In the middle of the same city, at a fountain
reputed to possess special virtues, men and women will stand
together naked and let the water run over them." (Carl
Davidsohn, "Das Nackte bei den Japanern," _Globus_, 1896, No.
16.)
"It is very difficult to investigate the hairiness of Ainu
women," Baelz remarks, "for they possess a really incredible
degree of modesty. Even when in summer they bathe--which happens
but seldom--they keep their clothes on." He records that he was
once asked to examine a girl at the Mission School, in order to
advise as regards the treatment of a diseased spine; although she
had been at the school for seven years, she declared that "she
would rather die than show her back to a man, even though a
doctor." (Baelz, "Die Aino," _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1901,
Heft 2, p. 178.)
The Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, appear to have been accustomed
to cover the foreskin with the _kynodesme_ (a band), or the
_fibula_ (a ring), for custom and modesty demanded that the glans
should be concealed. Such covering is represented in persons who
were compelled to be naked, and is referred to by Celsus as
"decori causa.
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