Nudity in Africa

Still very different traditions exist among, for example, sub-Saharan Africans, partly persisting in the post-colonial era. Whereas some tribes and family-groups including some Togolose and Nilo-Saharan (e.g., Surma people) still commonly parade fully naked or without any covering below the waist (especially at massively attended stick fighting tournaments, where well-exposed young men can hope to catch the eye of a prospective bride), amongst Bantu people there is often a complete aversion from public nudity — thus, in Botswana when a newspaper printed a photograph (of a thief suffering lashes on the bared buttocks imposed by a traditional chief's court, there was national consternation, not about the flogging but about the 'peeping tom'. The Ugandan Kavirondo tribes, a mix of Bantu and Nilotic immigrants, traditionally went practically naked, but the men eventually adopted western dress.