WHY DO HUMAN BEINGS PERSISTENTLY ALTER THEIR APPEARANCE? (part one)

We (human beings) are the only creature on this planet which chooses to ALTER and MANIPULATE its Own appearance

Read along to know why. Enjoy.

From 1760 to 1770 a Jesuit named Jose Sanchez Labrador

lived amongst the Caduveo tribe of what is now Brazil. Many things about these people's way of life shocked and annoyed Labrador and perhaps non so than the amount of time they spent each day painting intricate arabesque pattens on their faces.

Argument

The Jesuit argued that, as they had little to eat, they should be spending this time hunting, gathering or growing crop and, further more, in painting their bodies they were tampering with God's handy work. For their part, the Indians were shocked and amazed that any one could object to their body painting.. Don't be so stupid, they chided Labrador. If we didn't decorate ourselves then we would be just like the beast of the jungle they fumed.

The Caduveo's opinion

For the Caduveo and many other tribal peoples it is the action of decorating, adorning or modifying the body

which is seen as that which separate the humankind from animal kingdom. For some such peoples, as with the Caduveo, the distinction hinges on whether the body is painted. For other tribes, it is the matter of wearing enormous lip plugs in piercings made in their flesh. Many tribal peoples from the Arctic to the South Seas define humanity by the action of tattooing
or scaring the body. For the Balinese,
it is filing the teeth flat which separate people from animals. And for still other tribal peoples the dividing line between humans and beasts is the action of shaving body, head or facial hair (a belief which has been a source of considerable difficulty for many bearded Anthropologists).

The Alteration, is it new?

Being the only creature on this planet which chooses to manipulates its own appearance isn't something new. Human beings have been altering their appearance for as long as they have been human beings. Nor customising the body a freakish thing or even exceptional.
No society is found where appearance is dictated only by genetic inheritance.

Everywhere, to be acceptable and attractive is to do certain things to your body - rubbing bright red mud into the hair, cutting intricate patterns of scars in your skin, wearing a suit and tie etc. - which defy and subvert what nature intended.

To put it on the other way round, it is human nature - indeed, at the very heart of human nature - to customize the body. From the most technically "primitive" to the most (so called) "advanced" societies, from 100,000 years ago to the present day, human appearance has always been as well a biological creation. An individual born in another era or in a different society will acquire an entirely different standard of what a normal human being should look like. What's the reason?

To be concluded in part two, coming up next.
We shall reveal reasons why human being PERSISTENTLY ALTER their appearance.
Be expectant.

Best regards.
From the desk of Udu Ben.