The decorated body. - book reviews

Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1987 by Jeanne Carstensen

Anthropologist Robert Brain examines the universal human need to transform the body. One of his principal aims is to diminish the traditional gap between how "primitive" and "civilized" body art is understood; our need to express group belonging or rebellion through hair style, clothing, and cosmetics is as urgent as that of the Senegolese, who stretch their children's skulls in infancy to ensure their beauty as adults.

This book not only wanders through the social, ritual, sexual, and symbolic roots of body decoration in cultures around the world, it cajoles you into experiencing the power and mystery of the primary human language that of the body. Well illustrated with color and black-&-white photographs.

In the West we still pierce our ears, straighten our noses, and deform waists and chests by corsets. Our purpose would seem to be to draw attention to certain parts of the body. Western women have commonly accentuated the mouth with a slash of red, the ears with earrings and the eyes with black, blue or green make-up. Other peoples wear ear-plugs, labrets, lip-plugs, nose rings, penis sheaths or penis rings. I only want here to insist that the propensity to deform or alter the natural shape of the body is a universal one.

The Decorated Body

Robert Brain 1979; 192 pp.

$18.95 ($22.35 postpaid) from:

Spalding and Rogers

Route 85/New Scotland Rd.

Voorheesville, NY 12186