"The Henna is Here, Mix It": Armenian Traditions of Henna Use

I had an amazing time teaching, learning, hennaing, and getting hennaed at the Henna Gathering conference in Connecticut this past weekend. I gave three presentations: Henna in Judaism, The Ancient History of Henna, and Henna in the Middle Ages, and I was so grateful that many people attended all three and asked interesting, engaging questions.

Armenian girls in formal dress, Tiflis, ca. 1890

One lovely participant asked me whether I knew anything about henna traditions in Armenia, and unfortunately she had to be satisfied with my simple answer that I was sure that they did henna in Armenia but that I didn’t know much beyond that. I felt that she deserved a better answer than that, so I thought I’d do a little research and see what I could come up with.

Modern Armenia is located between Turkey and Iran, two countries which have had long henna traditions, and Armenian culture has much in common with neighbouring traditions. So it’s no surprise that henna was used in Armenia as well as among Armenian communities in Persia and Turkey, as well as by other Caucasian groups like Georgians, Circassians, Azeris, and others. 

While I have seen records of Jewish henna use among Kurdish, Persian, Turkish, and Georgian Jews, I have not yet seen any source describing henna use among Armenian Jews. However, I would not be surprised if they did use henna — this has more to do with the paucity of sources on Armenian Jewish culture than anything else. There's also a small minority of Armenian Muslims, with even fewer sources for research. Thus, in this post when I talk about 'Armenians' I am referring to Christian Armenians, whether in present-day Armenia or elsewhere, belonging either to the Armenian Apostolic or Armenian Catholic Church.