Stretching (body Piercing) - History and Culture

History and Culture

Ear stretching is a modification practiced by and originating from indigenous peoples. Tribes in various countries in Africa, Eurasia, America and other indigenous lands have practiced the ritual of ear stretching for cultural, religious and traditional purposes. This is a ritual that has been practiced by people all over the world from ancient times. Bone, horn, wood, and stone were generally carved for ear stretching, but other organic materials that had the right shape naturally, from shells to teeth and claws, were also used.

Ancient Egyptian pharaoh King Tutankhamen is of one of the earliest known to have stretched ear lobes. It can clearly be seen in one of his more famous images on his sarcophagus.

Read more about this topic:  Stretching (body Piercing)

Famous quotes containing the words history and/or culture:

    Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

    The anorexic prefigures this culture in rather a poetic fashion by trying to keep it at bay. He refuses lack. He says: I lack nothing, therefore I shall not eat. With the overweight person, it is the opposite: he refuses fullness, repletion. He says, I lack everything, so I will eat anything at all. The anorexic staves off lack by emptiness, the overweight person staves off fullness by excess. Both are homeopathic final solutions, solutions by extermination.
    Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)