Beauty From Other Cultures-African & South East Asia.

Beauty From Other Cultures-African & South East Asian Tribal Beauty

Long Neck Women of Southern Africa, Northern Thailand & Burma

Giraffe women originated around the 11th century from South Africa and Thailand. The brass coils around their necks are associated with beauty. The tradition starts at age 5. The “Long Neck Tribe are from Southern Africa wear brass & copper rings around their necks after they get married. Marriage is usually around 12 years old. The rings are to show tribal wealth and provides spiritual power.
The rings actually don’t stretch their neck-it’s an illusion. What the rings are really doing is weighing down the collar bone, pushing their shoulders down, and actually deforming their body to the extent that there are many daily things that these women can not do. These rings can cause pain, infection under the rings, weakened neck muscles, and bone structure deformation. It is said that these women can not drink from a cup without a straw, and that she will fall over backwards if she looks up at the sky.

Beautiful Ear Decorations

I Like This Woman's Look!

As you can see-the ear is slit and small plugs or disks are put in. As the skin stretches, a bigger, then a bigger,and a bigger object is put in until the desired beautiful look is accomplished. Here in the United States, many people are adopting ear plugs and disks, but not to such a degree.

Skin Scarring

This man is not scarred on his skin-just his nose!!!

Skin scarring is done by both men and women. Some say it really came into vogue during the slave trade days. They thought if they were scarred, that the slave traders would not want them. Some say it’s for beauty. For whatever reason-scarring is very much practiced today-kinda like tattooing.

The nomadic Wodaabe tribe of southwestern Niger are famous for their weaving and dyeing of beautiful cloth. The men take great pride in their physical beauty. At the geerewol festival, men are judged for their beauty. An example of one of these beautiful men below.

Men also take great pride in their male member. These sheaths ( some are gourds ) are also for modesty for pubescent females.



One of the most unusual body adornments is the disks-plates that the Suri women of Africa put in their lower lip. This practice is started young and takes time to get to the proper size. A woman with a large disk requires from her future husbands family-MORE cattle than a girl with a smaller lip disk. It is said that this disk may also have discouraged slave traders from taking these women. Some modern girls are opting out of this tradition......AND do still find a man who will pay for her with cattle.

Finally-below is a very interesting video (sorry about the short commercial before the video-you can choose to skip it) about lip disks or plates, how they are made, how the lips are stretched, what the women think about this custom, and what a modern girl has to say about the tradition.

That's beauty in Africa and Southeast Asia for now. Hope you enjoyed it. My favorites were the ear decorations and the scarring.

Bye for now!! Ali O.