The Wodabee Male Beauty

The Wodaabe, which means “the people of the Taboo”, live in parts of Central Africa. Beauty is very important to them, particularly a focus on male beauty with male beauty contests being held where men try to impress various young women. The gender relations within the tribal group are interesting, with polygamy being practiced including the permission for married women to then live with or marry another man. Women who are unmarried are free to sleep with any men they want with no social restrictions or penalties on their promiscuity.

The taboos relate to various relationships within the tribe with strict rules and customs to be followed in many situations. Strikingly, the parents may not speak directly with their two eldest children, and these two are usually brought up by the grandparents instead. They are nomadic with tribes consisting generally of a few brothers, their wives and their children. The women carry status symbols called calabashes, which are passed down through the generations.

The male Wodaabe beauty is tall, with bright white eyes and teeth. In festivals, the men wear elaborate ornaments, and feathers and makeup of paint. They perform, singing and dancing to attract women at the age of marriage.

As the festival closes, a week of contests called gerewol begins. The main purpose of this is to attract women for marriage, and young women judge the men’s skills and beauty during these contests.

The focus on male beauty in the Wodaabe tribes might reveal some of the connections between emphases on beauty and the role and position that people hold in society.

Below: A Wodabee woman judges a contest between men at a gerewol

Byzantine Embroidery

Byzantine Embroidery

Embroidery was a way for Byzantines among many other cultures, to decorate their clothing. The painstaking care taken in the fine and even stitches necessary to create an accomplished work of embroidery as well as the combination of creativity in coming up with beautiful designs as well as the transmission of culture in producing familiar patterns make this a fascinating window into the perceptions of beauty in ancient people.

Geometric patterns were popular in Byzantine, as well as nature, animals, as well as mythical creatures. The type of cloth and thread used may reflect the wealth of the wearer, with silk being a familiar indicator of high class. Even gold thread was sometimes used in garments.

Lip Piercing- Tembeta

Lip Piercing- Tembeta

In the culture of some groups in modern day Chile, lip-piercing was a symbol of adulthood. Young men would have their lip pierced in a ceremony after which they would have attained manhood. From this point on they were able to fill adult roles and to marry.

Aside from indicating their role in society, the tembeta was also believed to protect the wearer. It was often made of a stone of beautiful colours and was a curved shape.

Alcoholic beverages made of maize were frequently used to numb the pain of the piercing.

Tlingit and Haida Crest Tattoos

The Tlingit and Haida of Alaska used body modification procedures including Tatooing and piercing in order to proclaim their status and clan affiliation. The ceremony of piercing the ears of noble children was an important occasion which called for the participation of the whole clan and a festival of drinking and exchange. These ceremonies were called potlatches, although outlawed in the first half of the 20th century due to cultural misunderstanding of the ceremonies, leading to their decline. At these potlatches, after days of feasting the noble children would be pierced and tattooed by noble women or shamans. The Haida and Tlingit did this in order to display their position in society on differentiate them from other groups. The clan symbol also defined their relationship with other clans and showed their connection to the animal displayed.

The boys would be tattooed on the chest and the girls on the hands. Generally, the crest animal or some part of it would be tattooed onto the body.

The crest is immortal, and in ceremonies it would be the crest symbol that shamans would speak to rather than the person who was wearing the crest.

The below photo is of the Haida chief on the right where his grizzly bear tattoo on his shoulder in 1881

The Traditional Chinese Beauty

The Chinese word for beauty is seen in records as early as 11-16 BC and means “pleasant to the sight”. Internal virtue was also linked to the concept of beauty, with many traditional stories suggesting that external beauty is a reflection of moral virtue.
Although the standard has changed many times over the thousands of years of Chinese dynasties, the shifting physical ideals reflected in statues and paintings, the facial proportions have stayed more constant. The body types often reflected the kind of lives that wealthy women were expected to lead, with very delicate, sickly women romanticized during the Ming dynasty while full-bodied builds were preferred during the T’ang when women were expected to be more physically active during the , while slender, vital styles were preferred during the Han dynasty.


The beauty as portrayed in numerous court paintings and sculptures had an oval face and plump cheeks. Having dimples, jiowu (pit of wines), were seen as attractive. The shape of the eyebrows was seen to reflect the character of the woman, and was important because inner qualities were seen as a component of feminine beauty. However the idealised shape of the eyebrows also changed over the ages as different characteristics were preferred. For example, during the Qin, bushy long eyebrows were idealized while in the T’ang dynasty the eyebrows were trimmed into a half-moon shape.
The proportions of the beauty were important in painting, with the “five eyes” ratio being that the distance between the two eyes as well as between the outer eye and opening of the ear each being one eye. The vertical proportions were to be divided into three with the distance between the hairline to eyebrow, eyebrow to bottom of nose, and bottom of nose to chin each being equal.
The eyes were consistently drawn as long and upwardly curved with black eyes in beauties as portrayed in paintings. The lips were also a consistent ideal and were small, round and red and were upwardly curved.

Ancient Greek, Horaios, Beauty as being age-appropriate

In Koine Greek (popular form in 300BC-300AD), the word beauty, horaios, was connected to the word hora meaning time. The idea was that what was beautiful was appropriate for one’s own age, or being of one’s hour. The concept included the idea of a ripe old age, as well as the idea of youth. Somebody attempting to look older or younger than one age was considered unattractive.

The guitar-shaped body

Brazilian forms of beauty that spring immediately to mind are the painted and feathered extravaganzas Carnivale, and the salon-waxed, well-proportioned beach bums in bikinis. An exceedingly body-image concerned society with high rates of plastic surgery and use of other treatments, a look at what is requested is one way to reveal the beauty ideal there. Breast reduction is a popular surgery there as the emphasis is on the bottom half in Brazil, generally the reverse of Western societies. Known as “um corpo de violão,” literally the “guitar-shaped body”, the point of attraction was “the sweet swing” of her hips. In the past, this was even more so, and as in Western countries a look at the fifties shows a generally heavier, all over, body type thinning out over the decades. The heavier ideal, “fartura,” representing abundance, is still important in poorer and more tradional regions, however the Western ideal is penetrating the society deeper and deeper due to media, the fashion and modeling industry, movies, even children’s toys.

The Persian Lady

One of the more unique features of the Persian Ideal beauty is the joint brow, as can be determined by art from the era. Seen in ornate robes and luscious surroundings, emphasizing the wealth and abundance of the nobles and notables depicted, it might be possible to interpret from this also a symbolic expression of feminine fertility. Very often flowers are drawn around the damsel, at her feet or in the background. However in her actual physical characteristics, her femininity is very downplayed- de-emphasised, or it could almost be said de-feminised. Again this must be artistic license rather than the actual appearance of most of the girls, and in this gap can be seen the reach for the ideal by the commissioned artist. Focus is not drawn to her breasts and hips and they are often not shown in the pictures at all. Her torso is long, straight and flat like that of a thin young man.

The facial features probably reveal an Asian influence as the shape of the eyes and the large fleshy cheeks are very similar in style. Again this is an idealization, with the eyes often turned up and the nose straight and downturned. Often she has a beauty mark, and her headdresses, veils and hairstyles are very varied, probably reflecting the level of care and creativity that women took when dressing themselves.

There is a world of difference between the ideals of modesty in Persian culture and Western culture. As can be seen below, Persian women were sometimes drawn wearing a cape fastened only at the neck (and naked beneath) thus making the breasts vulnerable to exposure. The veil on the other hand seemed to have connotations of modesty or purity attached to it even in these pre-Muslim times.




(painting from Freer Sackler Gallery)