The sense of beautiful grounds in the culture of a community. When they are asked, the people from the same background and cultural norms tend to give the same answer since the criteria for “beau ideal” are influenced and dominated by the thoughts and norms sympathized by the public.
As you know, the parts of the world dissent from each other in terms of beauty perspective. One of the perspectives that we find interesting the most is Mangbetu people’s sense of beauty. They have elongated heads, intentionally shaped by themselves, which is the result of a custom named “Lipombo”. This practice of skull elongation has been carried out to create elongated heads, the status and beauty symbol among the Mangbetu people.
They wrap their babies head firmly with a piece of cloth to get their distinctive head look. Having influenced the African art, this tradition lasted until the middle of last century. It started to vanish with the coming of occidentalization and disappeared when it was declared unlawful by the Belgian government.
