Word: tribeswomen
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Khoo Thwe's final twist of good fortune seems better suited to the fairy tales he heard as a boy from the Padaung's bewitching tribeswomen, still better known today as "long necks" or "giraffe women" for the heavy brass coils they wear around their throats. They taught him their colorful creation myth: the tribe was born of a lovelorn she-dragon impregnated by the wind. One grandmother recalls a European journey that prefigures Khoo Thwe's own. In the 1930s she joined a troupe of Padaung women who toured England in a circus freak show?although grandma never doubted...
...keep themselves in shape or style. Too often they simply mutilated their bodies. For a thousand years Chinese women bound their feet so tightly that a natural "high heel" was formed, and toes were twisted irreversibly under the arch; African women used discs to form platypus lips; in Burma, tribeswomen encircled their necks with so many heavy metal rings that the vertebrae would separate. In the early 19th century, English fashion in female bodies was ethereal, emaciated; a tubercular fragility was considered attractive. Women subsisted on a diet of vinegar and belladonna to achieve the Pre-Raphaelite "fatal slimness...
Bangui's tame press wrote lovingly about "the African authenticity" of the momentous day. Despite the presence of bare-breasted tribeswomen marching and dancing at the parade, the overall effect of the panoply was, well, Napoleonic. That too was deliberate. In setting the date last year, Bokassa decided that his own coronation should emulate that of his hero, which took place in Paris 173 years...
...through the mist, in search of a village airstrip. "I think that's it," the pilot shouted to a companion over the whine of the engine. Dipping down through the clouds, the plane came in at treetop level, then bounced into a 700-ft. clearing. Eager tribeswomen in turbans and blue-striped frocks rushed toward the visitors, smiling through betel-stained teeth. Their menfolk set about happily unloading medicine, food, seed and other supplies. "This is the one place in Southeast Asia," the pilot beamed, "where we're a little ahead of the Communists...
Beards & Wine. Another important rebel link to outside aid is Arua (pop. 8,000), an otherwise sleepy town in western Uganda where the Lugbara tribeswomen still go bare-breasted and men hunt monkeys with bows and arrows. Somewhat reluctantly, the Uganda government has allowed Arua to become a haven for Simba warriors, who come in by truck and Jeep from the Congolese town of Aru just across the border, load up on food and liquor, then, after sleeping it off in a tin-roofed "refugee center," truck contentedly back. TIME Correspondent Peter Forbath, who drove to Arua last week, found...