[Sca-cooks] Bellybuttons and garb

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- Phlip <phlip at 99main.com> wrote:
> Actually, Jadwiga, while I was playing around,
> researching bunny fur
> bikinis, I discvered that many women athletes,
> before the Church got so
> repressive, wore breast bands and small loin
> cloths, as a sporting costume.

This, as far as I remember, is Roman.
>
> It's not unknown, it's just appropriate to only
> certain cultures and time
> periods- which really, is what we all need to
> learn and understand about
> ANYTHING declared "period".

True.  If you were a 16th Century Englishwoman,
this would be forbidden.
>
> Phlip
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>
> To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>
> >
> >  Greetings! I'd like to take this opportunity
> to publically eat crow.

How does it taste?  Is it bitter? :-)
> >
> >  In the course of some discussions, I've been
> saying that while SCA-cooks
> often use the term
> >  'not documentably period' to mean 'it's not
> a from a period recipe',
> other people (for
> >  instance, on the SCA-arts list) often use
> 'not documentably period' to
> mean 'things they are
> >  pretty sure aren't period but someone might
> suddenly discover are period'
> and giving
> >  examples including crochet and
> belly-button-revealing garb. Some nice
> person kindly repeated
> >  that back to a friend of mine, who pointed
> out that there is a culture
> known in the Old
> >  World that has lots of documented revealing
> of belly buttons-- that would
> be Indian (as in
> >  'Indian subcontinent') and of course I
> kicked myself. Because I _do_ know
> that, when I'm
> >  paying attention. So, if I led anybody
> astray, I'm sorry!
> >
> > -- Jadwiga, feeling really stupid.

Why?  First off, even in the Indian subcontinent,
the showing of a woman's belly button wouldn't
happen outside the
home/harem/seraglio/zenana/whatever, unless the
person was a prostitute or a public dancer [which
pretty much was the same thing].

But the real problem that I have when someone
points out such, as Phlip alludes to above, is
that someone will deliberately misinterpret such
and claim that they have a 16th Century Indian
persona but live in Europe, which wouldn't allow
such garb except as a side-show type of thing.
The Spanish brought back American Indians to show
their king how savage they were.  How long they
were allowed to continue wearing their native
garb beyond the spectacle, I don't know, but then
they were probably treated like animals in a zoo,
unless they started wearing European clothes. You
will notice that Pocahontas wore European clothes
in all her portraits.

Don't feel bad, Jadviga, you are only human, but
we love you any way! :-)

Huette

=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they
shall never cease to be amused.

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