Perspective: of custom

Anthropologists are constantly asked to explain what their subject is specifically about. Following the tradition that goes back to Tylor and Frazer, I take the view that the core of our studies is the fact, the phenomenon, of custom. I find it useful to think of this as a target concept, pointing to what we must aim to understand and explain in anthropological theory, rather than as a fixed conceptual category. To make it clearer I draw attention to the etymologically cognate word ‘costume’ which, like ‘custom’, is ultimately also derived from the Latin consuetudo and does not necessarily mean only attire. Nakedness, remarks Flugel (1930) in his delightful and not yet superseded book on The Psychology of Clothes, can in primitive society be a sign of social status just as at the other extreme special forms of clothing can be of rank and office (pp. 56–7); and this holds equally of course for our own society.

Here the customary use of body decoration as a form of costume, so to speak, halfway between nudity at one end of the scale and head to foot clothing at the other, is enlightening. In the south-eastern Nuba area of the Republic of Sudan, there are still tribal groups amongst whom men normally go completely naked, not even wearing a penis sheath such as is customary in parts of New Guinea, and girls are likewise nude until they become pregnant for the first time.