Some random surfing today got me to remembering pictures of African body modifiers of the past, specifically those who extended their necks with stacks of rings, and those who enlarged their lips until they were the size of saucers. Nobody still does that, do they?
I just came across this the other day while perusing the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. I was surprised to see a photo of a woman who elongates her neck (photo number 22). Not sure why I was surprised though - just because I saw it in the Guinness Book in the 80s doesn’t mean it’s not an everyday thing for the people.
Not Africa, tough - Myanmar.
The Mursiand Surma of Ethiopia apparently still use lip plates.
The Ndebele of South Africa sometimes wear neck rings, but according to the site it is no longer common to wear them permanently.
Neck elongation is more permanent and more extreme among the Kayan or Paduang of Southeast Asia. Evidently it is still practiced.
Isn’t tattooing a form of body modification?
You’ll see some pretty spectacular facial tattooing and scarification in parts of West Africa. There are areas where it’d be somewhat rare for people not to have at least some small facial scarification.
Sure it is, but it’s not as…exotic… as the examples I mentioned. IOW, I know tattooing is going on, I wasn’t sure of the extreme neck stretching thing. Speaking of which, I always wondered what an xray of one of those stretched necks would look like. As a kid, I heard the ring removal would kill.
The necks aren’t stretched; the weight of the rings pushes the clavicle down.
Knowing that make it just a little bit less creepy. Thanks!
Tooth filing is also a pretty common thing in some areas.
I’ve seen x-rays of them. I think it’s more creepy.
This page contains some x-rays.
I’ve recently seen young men of the Mercan tribe of North American stretching their earlobes. No one has any idea why.
;), but seriously, this is a traditional practice in many parts of the world and still common in a lot of traditional societies. Some avant-garde Western youth (female as well as male) adopted the practice in imitation of those customs.
The same way more moderate forms of body art such as nostril piercing, henna “tattooing” and dreadlocks got taken up by Western youth: somebody saw it on a person from another culture and thought it looked cool and copied it.