ABSTRACT
The Spaniards found the natives of the Bahama Islands and many tribes in Venezuela and Guiana without clothes. That the nature peoples in hot countries considered clothes simply as an ornament is evident from the fact that many of them, for example, the ancient Caribs, possessed clothes and yet generally went naked, and only adorned themselves therewith at festivals. This natural and original condition of man exists among many nature folk where nude man reaches a high stage of culture. The epoch of natural clothing, which might also be called tropical clothing, man is very near to nature conditions. A happy mixture of nature and culture was expressed in the noble simplicity of ancient dress, which was closely akin to natural clothing, but had discarded the barbaric glitter of ornaments. The epoch-making influence of the loom first makes its appearance in history among those people who had reached the stage of the older civilizations.
