Loincloths are commonly used as an undergarment or swimsuit by wrestlers and by farmers in paddy fields in both Sri Lanka and India, where it is called Kovanam in Tamil, ambudaya in Sinhala and kaupinam or langot.

One end of the loincloth was held up, the remainder passed between the thighs, wound about the waist, and secured in back by tucking.

[Note 1] In Pre-Columbian South America, ancient Inca men wore a strip of cloth between their legs held up by strings or tape as a belt.

[4] Unsewn Kaupinam and its later-era sewn variation langot are traditional clothes in India, worn as underwear in dangal held in akharas especially wrestling, to prevent hernias and hydrocele.

In many tribes, the flaps hung down in front and back; in others, the breechcloth looped outside the belt and was tucked into the inside, for a more fitted look.

[2] A Native American woman or teenage girl might also wear a fitted breechcloth underneath her skirt, but not as outerwear.

[2] Among the Mohave people of the American Southwest, a breechcloth given to a young female symbolically recognizes her status as hwame.

It is often a single, long, rectangular cloth that is not tied with a belt or string and were made from either barkcloth or hand-woven textiles.

The design of the weave is often unique to a specific tribe, while colors may denote the wearer’s social rank, such as plain white for commoners.

[12] It survives today among some indigenous tribes of the Philippines, most notably the various Cordilleran peoples in the mountains of inland northern Luzon.

[13] The bahág was also favoured by the pre-colonial noble (tumao) and warrior (timawa) classes of the Visayan people, as it showed off their elaborate, full-body tattoos (batok) that advertised combat prowess and other significant achievements:[14][15] The principal clothing of the Cebuanos and all the Visayans is the tattooing of which we have already spoken, with which a naked man appears to be dressed in a kind of handsome armor engraved with very fine work, a dress so esteemed by them they take it for their proudest attire, covering their bodies neither more nor less than a Christ crucified, so that although for solemn occasions they have the marlotas (robes) we mentioned, their dress at home and in their barrio is their tattoos and a bahag, as they call that cloth they wrap around their waist, which is the sort the ancient actors and gladiators used in Rome for decency's sake.One method of wrapping the bahág involves first pulling the long rectangular cloth (usually around 2 to 3 m (6 ft 7 in to 9 ft 10 in)) in between the legs to cover the genitals, with a longer back flap.