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THE CUSTOMIZED BODY |
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JEWELLERY & PIERCING Not The Naked Ape, we are and always have been The Adorned Ape. It is part of human nature to take beautiful objects from our surroundings -- flowers, leaves, feathers, stones, metals -- and attach them to our bodies. We do this either to make ourselves more attractive or because the ornament itself is seen as magically powerful (a talisman). Just as importantly, such objects can serve to convey information about us -- our wealth (a diamond necklace, the precious shells worn by a native of New Guinea) or our status or role (a wedding ring, the huge feather headdress of a native American chief). Especially where clothing isn't worn (our Western assumptions about modesty being a comparatively recent invention) adornment serves to identify and summarize an individual -- to signal to others where he or she is 'coming from.' Luckily the human body is an excellent medium for attaching things. The neck, the wrist, the waist, the ankle and the fingers all have a natural predisposition to keep such attachments in place. So useful are these points of attachment and so strong the human drive for adornment that necklaces, bracelets, belts or rings are found in all human societies. Occasionally such adornments cannot be removed, as was the case with the enormous, very heavy bronze anklets which long served as a status symbol in the forested regions of equatorial Africa and which in some societies were traditionally forged around a woman's ankles (a practice outlawed by the Liberian government in the mid-20th century). Jewellery need not, of course, be made of metal. Long before our ancestors learned to hammer or cast malleable metals like gold or silver into desired shapes they were fashioning pebbles, shells, feathers, flowers and leather thongs into beautiful objects which they attached to their bodies. Typically, such decorations crafted by our most distant ancestors have disappeared without trace but such non-metal decorations are a valued part of life in all tribal and peasant societies and it is inconceivable that the same was not true throughout human history. (The 'Iceman' discovered recently preserved in a glacier in the Alps wore at his waist an ornamental leather tassel and a brilliantly white, polished marble bead with a hole cut through it to facilitate its attachment.) In their eagerness to adorn their bodies with valued, precious and powerful objects our ancestors devised and perfected yet another technique for altering the appearance of the human body. Piercing -- puncturing small holes in flesh for decorative purposes -- is arguably the most widespread of all the permanent body arts. (Actually, technically, simple piercings are only a semi-permanent body art because they will usually heal over and disappear in time if their jewellery is removed.) While the earlobe (seemingly existing for no other reason than that of piercing and the wearing of earrings) is no doubt the most popular site, the nose (either nostrils or septum) and the lips are also popular piercing sites throughout the world. And once such artificially made places for attachment were created the full scope of the human imagination was unleashed on finding and fashioning objects with which to adorn them. Nor is this the end of the story as regards the possibilities of the piercing art. Once a small piercing has been made it can be stretched by inserting ever larger plugs or heavier adornments. In some instances (as with the huge, elongated earlobes visible on the mysterious statues of Easter Island) the desired result is in stretching flesh into new, fantastic shapes. Alternatively, the aim is simply to make it possible to wear ever larger adornments. In either case the results can be truly extraordinary and must rate as one of humankind's foremost achievements in the customizing of the body. Both in the Amazon and in West Africa -- for example, amongst the Suya and the Sara peoples -- examples can be found of lips which have been stretched to accommodate wooden plugs the size of saucers. What is astounding about these decorations is both the extent to which normal, everyday activities like eating or drinking have been (one would have thought) made extremely difficult and, secondly, the fact that such similar, extreme decorations are to be found in two such geographically disparate locations. The most likely explanation is that the Amazonian and the African lip adornments represent parallel independent discoveries and developments. (And the same can presumably be said of the large labret plugs which many Eskimo peoples wore above or below their lips and the visually similar labret adornments found amongst the Lobi and Kirdi tribes of West Africa. The choice of which part of the body or face to decorate with piercing and jewellery often reflects a special regard for that feature or body part: a regard which, more than simply an aesthetic fascination, underlines a people's mythic, moral or spiritual views about human achievement and existence. For example, the enormous lip plus of the Amazon tend to be found amongst those tribes where the art of oratory is highly developed and respected while the most startling examples of nose piercing found in New Guinea tend to occur in societies where smell is accorded great significance and where breath is equated with the life-force. As with tattooing and other forms of permanent (or semi-permanent) body decoration, piercing has not traditionally been popular in the West. Only 30 or 40 years ago it was extremely rare to see any such decoration except for the occasional woman with pierced ears. Everything else (and even ear piercing on men) was seen as suspect, 'barbaric' and 'primitive.' Perhaps we still associate this technique of body modification with the so-called 'primitive' but what seems to have changed is that now a growing number of people in the West see the 'primitive' in a positive rather than a negative light. Arguably such a revaluation began way back with Rousseau, but in terms of people actually altering their lifestyle, attitudes and appearance it was only with the Hippies' emulation of native Americans or Asian peasants and the Punks' wholesale adoption of 'primitive' adornments and attitudes that this became more than simply a whimsical yearning after a long lost way of life. Piercing is now without doubt the fastest growing form of body decoration in the modern world. Ultimately, the reason for this is a shift in attitude and a fundamental reappraisal of the deficiencies of our modern way of life (why, for example, do we as a culture no longer see the obvious values of a rite of passage ritual to mark a young person's coming of age?) but a few key individuals greatly assisted this process on its way. In America, Doug Malloy, Fakir Musafar and Jim Ward played a key, pioneering part (the latter as the founder of Gauntlet which made safe piercing jewellery readily available and the creator of the first regular piercing magazine, Piercing Fans International Quarterly). In the UK, Alan Oversby (Mr. Sebastian) carried on Doug Malloy's original experiments -- recently being charged with 'grievous bodily harm' by the British authorities for his efforts. Although not an original pioneer, Pauline Clarke in the UK deserves mention as the author of the most comprehensive book on the subject of piercing -- The Eye of the Needle -- which offers sound and valuable advice for anyone contemplating acquiring this form of adornment. By both reviving ancient practices and pioneering new ones, today's 'Modern Primitives' have created a huge repertoire of contemporary piercing possibilities. As well as multiple ear piercings, nostril, septum, labret (under the lip), eyebrow and navel piercings have all become a common sight on American, British and European streets. In the private sphere, genital and nipple piercings have become de rigueur in certain -- ever growing -- circles. Here, perhaps more than in any other area of body customizing, we see the extent of the 'Modern Primitive' revolution -- the rediscovery of ritual, of body arts previously condemned as 'barbaric' and, most importantly of all, of the fact that it is our bodies and what we do to them which define us as human beings. In an age which increasingly shows signs of being out of control, the most fundamental sphere of control is re-employed: mastery over one's own body.
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