PRIMITIVE DRESS Primitive adornment in its earliest stages may be divided into three classes; first the moulding of the body itself to certain local standards of beauty. In this category may be placed head deformation, which reached its extreme development among the Indians of North-West America and the ancient Peruvians ; f oot constriction as practised by the Chinese ; tooth-chipping among many African tribes; and waist-compression common in Europe at the present day. Many forms of deformation, it may be re marked in passing, emphasize some natural physical characteristic of the people who practise them. Secondly, the application of extraneous matter to the body, as painting and tattooing, and the raising of ornamental scars often by the introduction of foreign matter into flesh-wounds (this practice belongs partly to the first category also). Thirdly, the suspension of foreign bodies from, or their attachment to, convenient portions of the body. This category, by far the largest, includes ear-, nose- and lip-ornaments, head-dresses, necklets, armlets, wristlets, leglets, anklets, finger and toe-rings and girdles. The last are important, as it is from the waist-ornament chiefly that what is commonly considered clothing at the present day has been developed.
Setting aside for the moment the less important, historically, of these, nearly all of which exist in Western civilization of the present day, it will be as well to consider that form of dress which is marked by the greatest evolution. It is generally supposed that man originated in tropical or subtropical latitudes, and spread gradually towards the poles. Naturally, as the temperature became lower, a new function was gradually acquired by his clothing, that of protecting the body of the wearer. Climate then is one of the forces which play an important part in the evolution of dress; at the same time care must be taken not to attribute too much influence to it. It must be remembered that the Arabs, who inhabit an extremely hot country, are very fully clothed, while the Fueg ians at the extremity of Cape Horn, exposed to all the rigours of an antarctic climate, have, as sole protection, a skin attached to the body by cords.
Dr. C. H. Stratz divides clothing climatically into two classes: tropical, which is based on the girdle (or, when the attachment is fastened round the neck, the cloak), and the arctic, based on the trouser. This classification is ingenious and convenient as far as it goes, but it seems probable that the trouser, which also has the waist as its point of attachment, may itself be a further development of the girdle. Certainly, however, in historical times the division holds good, and it is worthy of remark that one of the points about the northern barbarians which struck the ancient Greeks and Romans most forcibly was the fact that they wore trousers. Amongst the most northerly races the latter garb is worn by both sexes alike; farther south by the men, the women retaining the tropical form; farther south still the latter reigns supreme. No distinct latitude can be assigned as a boundary be tween the two forms, from the simple fact that where migration in comparatively recent times has taken place a natural con servatism has prevented the more familiar garb from being dis carded ; at the same time the two forms can often be seen within the limits of the same country; as, for instance, in China, where the women of Shanghai commonly wear trousers, those of Hong Kong skirts. The retention by women in Europe of the tropical garb can be explained by the fact that her sphere has been mainly confined to the house, and her life has been less active than that of man; consequently the adoption of the arctic dress has been in her case less necessary. But it is noticeable that where women engage in occupations of a more than usually strenuous nature, they frequently don male costume while at their work; as, for instance, women who work in mines (Belgium) and who tend cattle (Switzerland, Tirol). The retention of the tropical pat tern by the Highlanders is due directly to environment, since the kilt is better suited than trousers for walking over wet heather.
Another factor besides climate which has exerted a powerful influence on dress—more perhaps on what is commonly regarded as "jewellery" as distinct from "clothing"—is superstition. Doubt less many of the smaller objects with which primitive man adorned himself, especially trophies from the animal world, were supposed to exert some beneficial or protective influence on the wearer, or to produce in him the distinguishing characteristics attributed to the object, or to the whole of which the object was a part. Such objects might be imitated in other materials and by successive copying lose their identity, or their first meaning might be otherwise forgotten, and they would ultimately exercise a purely decorative function. Though this factor may be responsible for much, or even the greater part, of primitive "jewellery," yet it does not seem likely that it is the cause of all forms of orna ment ; much must be attributed to the desire to satisfy an innate aesthetic sense, which is seen in children and of which some glim merings appear among the lower animals also.
See E. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage (London, 1901) ; Racinet, Le Costume historique (Paris, 1888) ; C. H. Stratz, Frauenkleidung (Stuttgart). (T. A. J.)