The Nomadic Alternative – Page 91

brutal belts and other veiled or overt suggestions of sadism. The young Emperor Gratian horrified his more conservative subjects by "shewing himself", in the words of Gibbon, "to his subjects and people, with the dress and arms and costume, the long bow and quiver sounding of a Scythian warrior". Herodotus reports this of the Scythians. Naked men huddled together into a subterranean steam-bath (or sauna) where the steam from water poured over red hot stones and the added vapours of Cannabis Indica combined to make them howl in ecstasy. This might be worth a try.

Skin clothing - especially if worn next to the skin - enhances new found or long lost virility and gives the illusory impression of manly appetites. And from two wholly different sources come accounts of a practice common to the nomadic sensibility - the artificial distressing of clothes. Here is Ammianus Marcellinus's description of Hunnish clothing. "Once they have put on a tunic of faded colours, they refuse to take it off or change it, until after long wear it falls off their back in tatters." And from Jan Hudson's Sex and Savagery of the Hell's Angels:

The new member's clothes are laid on the floor, and the rest of the club members gather around for the initiation ceremony. It starts in a fairly mild way with the smearing on of catsup, mayonnaise, mustard and anything else sticky or gooey that happens to be at hand. Then the whole mess is thoroughly doused with beer ... All members now present urinate on the clothing ... The originals are carefully preserved in this condition.

Apart from the obvious similarities of strict tribal loyalty, motor-bike or horse-raiding and general rejoicing in an outlaw status, Huns and Hell's Angels have this in common. Both are glued to the vibrating saddle and suffer in varying degrees from the abrasion of the crutch. Hippocrates, the old Greek doctor, accurately diagnosed this condition in his Airs, Waters, Places: "Most of the Scythians become impotent, do women's work and speak like women ... they are the most impotent of men ... because they always wear tight trousers and spend most of their time on horseback." Amazons reverberate into masculinity.