Anthropology 2285F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Britishness, Dentalium Shell, Potlatch
4 Apr 2020
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British attitudes to indian and european dress by tarlo. Europeans were shocked at the nakedness of the indian men. The notion of the graceful or disgraceful was applied to male and female attire: graceful was the robes that the elite indian men wore, disgraceful was the clothing that most of the population wore. Their notion of the evolutionary inferiority of the indian race: blackness of the skin was a sign of racial inferiority. As the british used more feminine words to describe indian men"s clothing, they simultaneously denigrated indian men to the status of their own women, which was irrelevant to political concerns. The british felt that through improving the native behaviour and customs felt that they were enabling the indians to be better versions of themselves. Barbarianism that was presented in indian dress was enough of a justification for the british people to feel the need to civilize them.
