Beauty is . . . a brass neck
QUESTION Are there still giraffe women in Burma?
HISTORICALLY, a significant number of women in Kayah State, eastern Burma (now Myanmar), wore brass coils around their necks to give the impression their necks were stretched, hence the nickname giraffe women.
A long neck is a symbol of beauty and neck rings have been part of a tradition among female members of Kayan Lahwi, a sub-tribe of the Kayan ethnic group. These expensive fashion items were reserved for favourite daughters.
While the rings make the women’s necks appear long, in reality, it’s the weight of the coils pushing down on the muscles around the collarbone, compressing the rib cage, that mean their necks appear longer than they are. When the coils are removed, wearers report the neck mostly returns to normal.
The process begins as young as the age of five. A long piece of brass is wound in a spiral around the necks and is increased in size over the years.
From 2000, there were complaints that women were being forced to wear the rings to encourage tourism. In 2006, some younger women started to remove them in protest against the exploitation of their culture and the restrictions that came with the practice.
It is thought there are fewer than a hundred long-neck women across Myanmar, a decline from a few decades ago when there were 300 to 400 in Kayah state alone.
Steve Palmer, Peterborough. GIRAFFE women are not confined to Myanmar. The South Ndebele peoples of Africa wear neck rings as part of their traditional dress and as a sign of wealth and status. Only married women are allowed to wear the rings, called dzilla. Traditionally, the rings are given to a wife by her husband and not removed until his death. Unlike the Kayan neck coils, the Ndebele women add individual rings.
Margaret Hallam,
Essex.
QUESTION How did selection boxes become a Christmas tradition?
ORIGINALLY, chocolates were sold loose, but gradually the idea of assortments of chocolates packed in presentation boxes began to take hold as a perfect present for Christmas, but initially, only for wealthy people.
The chocolate-making firm of Terry’s, which dated back to 1728, pioneered the idea of boxed chocolate assortments, in 1900. Terry’s All Gold selection gradually became a firm favourite.
Then came Cadbury, which started selling Milk Tray presentation boxes in 1915.
Out of the strong demand for boxed chocolates came selection boxes, which were first aimed primarily at the children of the
wealthy. One of the earliest selection boxes was developed by Rowntree’s in 1925. It featured colourful illustrations of Santa Claus and children gathered outside a sweet shop.
The boxes – containing Nut Cracknel, Cream Tablette and Motoring bars – were considered ‘extravagant’ and, at 10 shillings, could have cost the same amount as a week’s rent for a workingclass family at the time.
In the 1930s, chocolate makers added novelty items to the packs – such as vases, carriage clocks and cutlery sets, which acted as keepsakes once the snacks had been eaten.
Rowntree’s stopped making
selection boxes through the 1940s, due to shortages after World War Two, but relaunched them in the 1960s. They were much smaller and, instead of coming with random presents, they featured games on the back of the box to increase their appeal for children.
It was then that some of the iconic treats we know today began to appear in the packs, including Smarties, Aero, Kit Kat, Fruit Gums and Fruit Pastilles.
Cadbury and other chocolate companies followed suit, developing their own versions of selection boxes – which became cheaper and thus very popular in the 1970s when there would be around eight bars of chocolate in each box.
Chocolate really became an affordable treat for families in 1936, when Mackintosh’s chocolates, based in Halifax in England, launched Quality Street. The firm used pioneering technology, including the first twist-wrapping machine in the world. The chocolates were packed in tins, rather than in cardboard boxes.
For the first time, assortments of chocolates became affordable for working people.
Quality Street was packaged in brightly coloured tin containers and the new product was much more affordable. The chocolates inside the tins were made much more reasonably priced because Mackintosh’s used chocolate coatings on toffees, themselves made from inexpensive, locally produced ingredients.
Mackintosh’s merged with Rowntree’s, to form RowntreeMackintosh in 1968 and that amalgamated firm was taken over by Nestlé in 1988.
By now, all the big English-based chocolate-making firms, including Cadbury, have been taken over by multinationals, but the tradition of selection boxes or tinned chocolate assortments continues unabated, especially at Christmas.
Because of tariffs after the Irish Free State was set up, all the big English chocolate-making firms set up here. The earliest to arrive was Mackintosh, which started here in 1924. Cadbury started in Ireland in 1933, with its first fac- tory at East Wall in Dublin.
To start with, Cadbury only made and sold three lines here, including Dairy Milk. Its factory in Coolock, still in production, started in 1964, although in 2015, Cadbury closed the other factory it had in Dublin, at Tallaght.
Nowadays, selection boxes retail for as little as €2, which is a fraction of what families would have had to pay in the 1920s for one.
However, with shrinkflation of confectionery continuing, the bar sizes are much smaller than during the 1970s and very few boxes now contain more than six bars. Áine Devlin, Kells, Co. Meath.
QUESTION Could Harpo Marx speak?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, Harpo Marx made his last live stage appearance as a guest on the Allan Sherman variety show in Pasadena, California, in 1963.
According to his son, the musician Bill Marx, at the end of his act Harpo announced his retirement. The audience was stunned he could talk.
Borrowing from his father, whose autobiography was Harpo Speaks!, Bill Marx’s book is called Son Of Harpo Speaks!
Paula Johns,
Chelmsford, Essex.
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