African Beauty Embrace your HIPS and CURVES!
True African beauty is about taking pride in your own body. in Africa the big phenomena is about being curvaceous, thus implying your sensuality as a women. Also Africa beauty is captured through the ethnic traditions that emphasize how one should embrace the human form with body adornment and ornamentation.
Eighteenth Century View
During the late eighteenth century anthropologist compared women of different cultures and their interest was focused on the sexual traits a woman possessed. A woman’s feminine beauty was characterized by the redness of her lips, length of her hair, the size of her breasts, her fertility, and ultimately the shape and size of her pelvis. The pelvis was associated with the procreative qualities and was a measure of “womanliness”. Eighteenth century anatomist like Petrus Camper felt that the African pelvis was more spacious and bigger than a European’s woman who was seen to have the ideal built. As a result this trait type casted African women to have the ability to give birth with ease. This justified the belief that slave women could be worked during their pregnancy and still be sent out to the fields to work again a few days after giving birth. The African female could never embody true femininity. In popular eighteenth century beliefs a woman should be “delicate, pure, and passionless, a bastion of moral and spiritual viture” (Schiebinger). The African female was understood to never being able to capture these qualities. African beauty was undermined and transformed into being regarded as beastly and savage like.
During the late eighteenth century anthropologist compared women of different cultures and their interest was focused on the sexual traits a woman possessed. A woman’s feminine beauty was characterized by the redness of her lips, length of her hair, the size of her breasts, her fertility, and ultimately the shape and size of her pelvis. The pelvis was associated with the procreative qualities and was a measure of “womanliness”. Eighteenth century anatomist like Petrus Camper felt that the African pelvis was more spacious and bigger than a European’s woman who was seen to have the ideal built. As a result this trait type casted African women to have the ability to give birth with ease. This justified the belief that slave women could be worked during their pregnancy and still be sent out to the fields to work again a few days after giving birth. The African female could never embody true femininity. In popular eighteenth century beliefs a woman should be “delicate, pure, and passionless, a bastion of moral and spiritual viture” (Schiebinger). The African female was understood to never being able to capture these qualities. African beauty was undermined and transformed into being regarded as beastly and savage like.
Yes BIG is BEAUTIFUL
Traditional African beauty celebrates a woman’s curvy yet voluptuous figure. In Nigeria it is normal for a girl as young as six years of age to be “fattened up” before she is married. The young woman is sent to the “Fattening Room” where she is isolated from her village during the very private affair. She is expected to put one as many pounds as possible, so she is not allowed to do any physical work except eat as much as she can. She is usually assigned her own attendant and room in her parent’s home. The young woman’s room consists of a single bare bamboo bed and area to take care of her personal hygiene. It is here where she taught to be a good wife in catering to her husband’s needs and caring for children. This process ensures the girls ability to bare and conceive a healthy baby, which is associated with the broadening of her hips. The bigger and healthier she is the better. A woman’s lustrous round body implies her desirability, her value in being a suitable pick for a wife, and is also reflective of her family’s wealth.
Today “Fattening Rooms” are used less and less. However, the practice of using a “Fattening Room” is still popular among wealthy families that can afford such an expense. Fattening rooms are now associated with infertility because many women are becoming too over weight. Also, schooling and the press for education interferes with the time a girl can stay in the “The Fattening Room”.
Brink, P., Social Aspects of Obesity (Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach Publishers 1995), 71-83.
Body Painting
Body Painting is one of the oldest art forms in Africa. Evidence of this long-standing art has been discovered in rock engravings and African caves. The Blombos Cave in South Africa revealed colors like red and yellow ochers (clay coloring) have been used for 100,000 years.
Body painting is a traditional form of body adornment that celebrates the human form. The very essence of this body art is “life-affirming, transforming, spontaneous, and a signature of being alive” (Beckwith). It can be used for decoration, but also it can display to others an imprinted message emerging from various patterns and designs on one’s body. This message can convey one’s availability, status, and position within society or one’s tribe. Oil, clay, chalk, and plant products are the typical form of media used to create the various colors and textures needed.
The Surma and the Karo make the use of the white chalk and red ocher mixed with animal fat or water to create their paint. The colors are seen to symbolize the ancestral ideology of energy and fertility. Both civilizations firmly believe that body painting is a vital part in their child’s education in embracing the cultural practices. Body painting teaches a girl to attract men in the hopes of finding a suitable husband. Children begin to implement these skills as young as four years of age. As they mature their simple designs turn into more intricate forms of body adornment.
The body painting honors the human form in seeing it as a blank canvas to prepare it for various stages in life, like during courtship rituals. The body art is also used to introduce one’s self into the world as an adult and the transition of empowerment. It shows the progression of becoming an able member of the tribe who the community depends on to survive.
Want to See More Body Painting? Click on the Youtube Video Link Below!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5r-_f8qmm0
Body Painting is one of the oldest art forms in Africa. Evidence of this long-standing art has been discovered in rock engravings and African caves. The Blombos Cave in South Africa revealed colors like red and yellow ochers (clay coloring) have been used for 100,000 years.
Body painting is a traditional form of body adornment that celebrates the human form. The very essence of this body art is “life-affirming, transforming, spontaneous, and a signature of being alive” (Beckwith). It can be used for decoration, but also it can display to others an imprinted message emerging from various patterns and designs on one’s body. This message can convey one’s availability, status, and position within society or one’s tribe. Oil, clay, chalk, and plant products are the typical form of media used to create the various colors and textures needed.
The Surma and the Karo make the use of the white chalk and red ocher mixed with animal fat or water to create their paint. The colors are seen to symbolize the ancestral ideology of energy and fertility. Both civilizations firmly believe that body painting is a vital part in their child’s education in embracing the cultural practices. Body painting teaches a girl to attract men in the hopes of finding a suitable husband. Children begin to implement these skills as young as four years of age. As they mature their simple designs turn into more intricate forms of body adornment.
The body painting honors the human form in seeing it as a blank canvas to prepare it for various stages in life, like during courtship rituals. The body art is also used to introduce one’s self into the world as an adult and the transition of empowerment. It shows the progression of becoming an able member of the tribe who the community depends on to survive.
Want to See More Body Painting? Click on the Youtube Video Link Below!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5r-_f8qmm0
Lip Plates
The people of the Omo River Valley of Ethiopia including Mursi and the Surma practice the cultural tradition of lip plating as being a sign of beauty. When a girl has reached puberty a hole is pierced in her lower lip and increasingly larger disks are inserted over a six month time span. The lip plate is a sign of a girl’s induction into womanhood and a declaration of her being suitable for marriage. The size of the plate indicates the number of cattle the girl’s parents require for her hand in marriage.
Usually unmarried women and newly married women with children wear the lip ring. An unmarried woman will wear her lip ring whenever she is in public. A newly married woman may wear the ring when she is serving her husband food or during special occasions like weddings or dueling competitions. It is customary for a woman to take her lip ring out when she is sleeping, eating, or in the presence of other women. The lip ring serves a sign of a woman’s commitment to her culture and her husband. Once her husband is deceased it customary for the wife to stop wearing her lip ring in the remembrance of her husbands death.
The lip ring is also a sign of beauty and self-pride for women. Traditionally when a girl decides not to cut her lip it said that she is seen to be weak and lack the qualities of becoming the ultimate woman and thus a good wife. The desired characteristics of women in the Mursi and Surma tribes include being hardworking, self-assured, and confident in the presence of a man.
Today, the African culture is heading in a new direction with their opinions on lip plating as the new generation of women in Ethiopia emerge. The women convey the lack in the ability to blur lines between modern society and their ethic heritage. Women feel this is inhibiting them from becoming socially accepted and educated within modern society. The ring is a sign of their pride in their ethnic identity, but some feel it is not worth being judged in large-scale society.
Read the Articles to Learn more about Lip Plates by clicking on the PDF links below:
http://www.mursi.org/pdf/latosky.pdf
http://www.mursi.org/pdf/lip-plates.pdf
Usually unmarried women and newly married women with children wear the lip ring. An unmarried woman will wear her lip ring whenever she is in public. A newly married woman may wear the ring when she is serving her husband food or during special occasions like weddings or dueling competitions. It is customary for a woman to take her lip ring out when she is sleeping, eating, or in the presence of other women. The lip ring serves a sign of a woman’s commitment to her culture and her husband. Once her husband is deceased it customary for the wife to stop wearing her lip ring in the remembrance of her husbands death.
The lip ring is also a sign of beauty and self-pride for women. Traditionally when a girl decides not to cut her lip it said that she is seen to be weak and lack the qualities of becoming the ultimate woman and thus a good wife. The desired characteristics of women in the Mursi and Surma tribes include being hardworking, self-assured, and confident in the presence of a man.
Today, the African culture is heading in a new direction with their opinions on lip plating as the new generation of women in Ethiopia emerge. The women convey the lack in the ability to blur lines between modern society and their ethic heritage. Women feel this is inhibiting them from becoming socially accepted and educated within modern society. The ring is a sign of their pride in their ethnic identity, but some feel it is not worth being judged in large-scale society.
Read the Articles to Learn more about Lip Plates by clicking on the PDF links below:
http://www.mursi.org/pdf/latosky.pdf
http://www.mursi.org/pdf/lip-plates.pdf
Human Physique and Sexual Attractiveness:
Sexual Preferences of Men and Women in Bakossiland, Cameroon
The “Human Physique and Sexual Attractiveness: Sexual Preferences of Men and Women in Bakossiland, Cameroon” experiment studied the ratings of attractiveness according to both men and women living in Bakossiland, Cameroon (Central Africa). All participants were asked to evaluate various images of male and female figures of the opposite sex. The figures differentiated in body builds and portions. Some of these characteristics included hip and size ratios on females, size of masculine trunk (chest and abdominal) on males, the skin color on females, and the presence of chest hair on males. Results showed that Bakossiland women preferred men with chest hair and a muscular to average built. The study associated these results with a females desire for wanting a man that has the physical skills to protect and survive, thus making him more reproductively attractive. The experiment showed that Bakossiland men had slightly preferred women with medium/darker skin tone more when compared to others. Overall, there was not a significant difference among the varying skin complexion desirability. Also, Baskossiland men favored the female figure with a 0.8 waist to hip ratio, meaning a female with a more “curvaceous shape”.
Original Article
References...
- Beckwith, C. Painted Bodies: African Body Painting, Tattoos & Scarification (New York: Rizzoli 2012).
- Brink, P., Social Aspects of Obesity (Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach Publishers 1995), 71-83.
- Dixson, Barnaby J., Alan F. Dixson, Bethan Morgan, and Matthew J. Anderson. "Human Physique and Sexual Attractiveness: Sexual Preferences of Men and Women in Bakossiland, Cameroon." Archives of Sexual Behavior 36, no. 3 ( 2007): 369-75. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10508-006-9093-8. http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/205938793?accountid=12598.
- La Tosky, S. “The perils of face: essays on cultural contact, respect and self-esteem in southern Ethiopia,” Mainzer Beiträge zur Afrika-Forschung 10: Lit Veriag (2006): 382-397.
- Schiebinger L., “Theories of Gender and Race” Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science no. 2 (2004):156-160.
- Turton, D. 2004. "Lip-Plates and 'the People Who Take Photographs': Uneasy Encounters between Mursi and Tourists in Southern Ethiopia." Anthropology Today 20 (3): 3-8.