From My Files 4: Four Centuries of Moroccan Jewish Henna

I just returned from a brief trip to Berkeley to celebrate the opening of a museum exhibition on Moroccan Jewish art that I helped research: The Invisible Museum: History and Memory of Morocco. It's open all this year until Jun 29, 2018, so if you're in the Bay Area I would highly recommend visiting it! Unfortunately there's no henna in the exhibit, but we do have some magnificent examples of the keswa el-kbira, the multilayered gold-and-velvet dress worn during the henna ceremony, which I've featured on this blog before. 

Moroccan henna dresses in the Magnes collection, on display in the exhibit.

From My Files 3: The Oldest Record of Henna

From My Files, week 3! This week we're going back in time to find the earliest record of henna... Where and when did it begin — India? Africa? Babylonia? Google searches only reveal a black hole of contradictions and misinformation.

Where? Where???

There are few records of henna in the ancient world, and scholars face significant challenges, including the lack of archaeological evidence and confusion over what henna was called in different areas of the world, as well as having to face centuries of henna being overlooked by historians as insignificant or unworthy of serious study. We have only begun to piece together the scattered fragments of evidence for how henna was used in the ancient world... To learn more about henna in the Bible and the ancient Levant, in the Hellenistic world, and in ancient Egypt, see here.

From My Files 2: Henna in the Museum

From My Files, week 2! Let's keep the momentum going.

Building off of last week's post, which featured a genipa fruit in a 17th century museum, this week I thought I would share some examples that I've come across of henna in museums around the world. Feel free to add in the comments: have you ever come across henna in a museum? As a student of Museum Studies, I've always been fascinated by combining two of my interests, and I would love to plan a museum exhibit on henna around the world... One day! What would you put in a museum exhibit on henna?

Of course, there are many examples of art depicting henna in museums around the world (for some examples previously examined in the blog, see here, here, and here), but we are not going to attempt to survey this in this brief post. Another category that we could put in our hypothetical henna exhibit are what might be termed henna paraphernalia, or objects related to henna or used during henna application. 

Henna gourd from West Africa, Smithsonian Museum of African Art

For example, in this post I have an example of a zunguru, or calabash gourd filled with henna paste, used in West Africa to cover the arms with henna; this post has an example of a sang-e ḥanā, "henna stone" or stool to rest one's feet on after they've been hennaed, which was common in Persia and the Ottoman Empire; and this post shows a Jewish henna cloth, known as pishandaz-e ḥana, from Afghanistan.

From My Files 1: Some Jagua History

It's been a while since my last blog. The truth is that I've been very busy with my doctoral program and I haven't had time to research and write the lengthy articles as in the past. But I'm going through my henna files in preparation for HennaCon 2017 and thought I'd post some shorter snippets of interesting history... So welcome to the first instalment of this "From My Files" series! My goal is to post one a week from now until Henna Con — that's only 12 weeks away!!! Can you believe it? So feel free to check in every week (you can subscribe by email, or follow us on Facebook), and let the countdown begin!

The Fingernail Flower: Henna in China

The question of henna use in China has come up many times in my research, and I finally decided to address it... My obvious hesitation is that I have no background in Sinology or Chinese Studies, no knowledge of any Chinese language, and no ability to do primary research in the field. 

However, I have always maintained that my goal is not to become the ultimate authority on the history of henna in every place and every time; rather, I want to demonstrate the richness, diversity, and depth of henna’s history in order to open the door to conversation and further research. With that goal in mind, therefore, I’ve put together a few sources that I’ve found, and I invite you to contribute your own! I hope that this becomes a starting point for someone else’s research. I should acknowledge here my fellow henna artist Connie and my fellow PhD student Eric for their assistance in navigating Chinese history.

A taste of the difficulties facing even scholars of Chinese culture can be seen in a conversation that happened in 1868 in the pages of the scholarly journal Notes and Queries on China and Japan. Theophilus Sampson, a British official and botanist in southern China (writing under the pseudonym Cantoniensis, “from Canton,” now Guangdong Province), published a brief note entitled “Henna in China” in which he explained that the henna plant (Lawsonia inermis) was commonly grown in the Guangdong province and that it is called zhijiahua (as he writes, “chih-kiah-hwa”), “finger nail flower.” However, he added, it was used as a dye only by the Hakka people in Guangdong and not the Punti.

The First Indian Mehndi Design... Part Two.

One year ago, I wrote a blog post exploring an Indian Mughal painting from Rajasthan, ca. 1740, showing a woman with a simple dot design on her palm. In that post I suggested that this was “the oldest visual depiction of henna designs in Indian art”... yet. Of course, the wonderful thing about academic research is that as your knowledge grows, you can return and revise your earlier theories. I now believe that the painting I featured there is not in fact the oldest visual depiction of a henna design in Indian art, and that we can now push the date back yet another century. I am aware of how dreadfully remiss I've been in posting henna blogs, so I've written up a short post featuring this object and hopefully it will be followed by a few others that have been queued for months... 

Scribal tools and pen cases, 18th century Turkey, in the
Aga Khan Museum.

The object in question is not a painting, but a decorated pen-case, known in Persian as a qalamdan. The qalamdan was sometimes made of metal and sometimes out of wood or papier mâché, and decorated with inlay, gold, watercolour, or lacquer. 

They were a popular object among the educated and cultured classes of Persian and Indian society, representing the owner’s appreciation of literature and the arts and suggesting (correctly or not) that the owner was a writer, poet, or artist themselves.

This particular qalamdan, currently in the Freer Gallery of Art (F1959.5) in Washington D.C., is made of papier mâché with watercolour paintings that have been glued on top. 

Lalle, Anella, and Fudden: Henna in West Africa

I’ve already blogged about henna in East Africa here, and of course I’ve done several posts about henna in North Africa (e.g. here, here, and here), so I figured it was time for West African henna traditions to get their time to shine.

Woman applying henna for Eid, Burkina Faso, 2012.
Photo by Bridget Roby.

Henna has been a part of West African culture for at least a thousand years. While it is likely that henna has been growing in North Africa as early as the Roman period, the oldest record that we have of henna in the region of West Africa is from the medieval Andalusi geographer al-Bakri (ca. 1014-1094), who writes in his book Kitāb al-Masālik wa-al-Mamālik (“The Book of Roads and Kingdoms”):

Awdaghust [is] a flourishing place, a large town containing markets, numerous palms and henna trees… Excellent cucumbers grow there, and there are a few small fig trees and some vines, as well as plantations of henna which produce a large crop. 

Today Awdaghust (or Aoudaghost) is an archaeological site located in south-central Mauritania, but in the Middle Ages it was an important oasis town for trans-Saharan caravans of gold and salt, under the control of the Ghana Empire (not to be confused with the modern country of Ghana). In fact, henna may have been growing there even earlier, since scholars have suggested that al-Bakri is likely borrowing this information from the 10th-century writer al-Warraq (McDougall 1985, pg. 7).

Medieval trans-Saharan trade routes (map by Sam Nixon).

Cloves and Kohl: Henna Traditions On the Swahili Coast of East Africa

I had a lovely private appointment a while back whose client wanted some henna for her upcoming trip to East Africa, including Kenya and Tanzania. I warned her that black henna is extremely prevalent in that area, but unfortunately I couldn’t tell her much more about the history of henna there, so… (you guessed it) time for a new blogpost! I love invitations to learn more about henna traditions across the world — if you have any suggestions for other areas to research, please leave them in the comments!

In this post, I focus on henna traditions on the Swahili coast of East Africa, especially the archipelagos of Lamu (today part of Kenya) and Zanzibar (today part of Tanzania). I imagine that many henna artists, like me, might associate East Africa simply with 'black henna' and the dangers it poses. 

I want to emphasize that while this post will discuss and portray the use of various ‘black henna’ chemical substances, I DO NOT condone the use of ‘black henna’ and urge all my readers to use and support natural henna ONLY.

So first, a little history (if you want to go straight to the henna pics, I won't be offended — just scroll down a bit!). The Swahili coast has been a centre of trade and culture for over a thousand years. Known as Zanj to medieval Arab traders, East Africa had strong mercantile ties with the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, India, and even China. The Kilwa Sultanate controlled the Swahili coast throughout the Middle Ages, and once it broke up in the 17th century, imperial powers moved in. Zanzibar became part of the Sultanate of Oman in 1698, and a British protectorate in 1890.

The population of the Swahili coast, therefore, is a diverse mix of ethnic and cultural groups, including: Arabs, especially originating in Yemen and Oman; Afro-Arab families, formed as merchants intermarried with local women; African Bantus, including those living in slavery until its abolishment at the end of the 19th century; and Indians, including Hindus, Muslims, and some Parsis.

Brahmin Indian woman, Zanzibar, 1900.

While it is not clear when henna was introduced to East Africa, it was likely that these trading routes brought henna to the Swahili coast quite early on. Patricia Romero Curtin suggests that henna traditions “started among the Hindu women,” 1987, pg. 367, but I suspect that it is far more likely that it was brought by Arab merchants earlier on: probably in the 17th century, or even in the Middle Ages, in the period of the Kilwa Sultanate. Today (as I note in this post) in Swahili henna is known both as mhina / hina, a loanword from the Arabic al-hinna', or mkokowa, referring to the red mangrove (another dye plant that produces a similar colour) — thus supporting the idea that henna was introduced by Arab merchants rather than Indian Hindu migrants (who would have most likely referred to henna as mehndi).

Bless Me, Mother, That I May Apply the Dye: Henna Traditions in the Balkans

Hi henna blog readers! I know it’s been a while — the beginning of my PhD program has meant that I’ve been even more busy than usual… I’m super excited to be teaching about henna at HennaCon this coming weekend! I’ll be giving three lectures: the history of henna, the use of henna in ritual, and a special “Mythbusters: Henna Edition.”

But in the meantime I got a great question on my tumblr recently about henna in the Balkans, and you know what that means — new blogpost!

So let’s start with defining where we’re talking about: a large peninsula in southeast Europe, from the Black Sea on the east to the Adriatic on the west, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, and even parts of Slovenia and Romania.

Etruscan funerary casket, 2nd century BCE.

Some of the earliest records of henna in the ancient world suggest that it was known in this area, at least to the Greeks: descriptions of henna appear in the writings of Greek scholars and botanists including Theophrastus (ca. 371—287 BCE) and Dioscorides (ca. 40—90 CE). 

While the best henna was grown in Egypt and the Levant, the Roman historian Pliny (ca. 23—79 CE) notes that it was also grown in Cyprus, the island with which it shares its name in Greek (kupros)… Artistic depictions of women with red hair support the theory that it was known as a hair dye on the mainland of southeastern Europe.

But after the classical age, it seems that henna fell out of use... As far as I can tell, henna was not used in the region during the Byzantine empire, which would mean that the use of henna in the Balkans was reintroduced with the Ottomans, who began expanding their empire from Turkey into southeastern Europe in the 14th century. The Ottomans, of course, had already developed some of the finest henna traditions of the Islamic world. Depicted in miniature manuscripts, and mentioned in Ottoman poetry, henna (known as kina in Turkish) was not only an important cosmetic for the hammam, and a part of pre-wedding ceremonies, but also a major economic export for various communities around the Mediterranean basin.

March to Your Own Drummer: The History of Hennaed Drums (Part One)

I have a friend who is a musicologist specializing in Sephardic music, and for months we have been trying to arrange for me to henna some of the drums in her extensive collection. So far we have failed to successfully co-ordinate it... So in lieu of hennaed drums, I offer her this blogpost series about hennaed drums; hopefully we’ll be able to make it happen in reality soon!

This is the first of a three-part series, combining history and a how-to — the first part focuses on hennaed drums in medieval Spain, the second on hennaed drums in 19th and 20th century North Africa, and the third on modern hennaed drums, with some helpful tips from contemporary henna artists!

Hennaed Drums in Medieval Spain

The ultimate origin of hennaed drums is probably impossible to find definitively. Wherever people were using henna on skin, and had drums, it would be a logical extension to decorate your drumheads with henna. Drumheads will stain beautifully — they are skin, after all — and the colour will be deep and permanent (since the animal’s skin is no obviously longer growing).

Some of the earliest records, to my knowledge, that may allude to hennaed drums are from al-Andalus, the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula (today Spain and Portugal). While I have not been able to find any textual references to hennaed or decorated drums, a number of examples of medieval art, both Jewish and Christian, depict drums that have designs on the membrane.

The decorated drums of the Golden Haggada, Barcelona, ca. 1320.

The subject of the paintings is often the prophet Miriam dancing and singing with the women after the crossing of the Reed Sea. As is common in medieval art, although the events depicted took place in another time the characters are depicted as if they were living in the contemporary period — the clothes, instruments, and other objects were shown as recognizable to the viewers, as a way of drawing a direct link between the events of the Exodus (for example) and the celebrants at a Passover seder in 14th century Catalonia. “In every generation,” we read in the haggada [Passover servicebook], “one must see themselves as if they had themselves left Egypt.”

The drums shown are handheld frame drums, known as adufes or panderos in Spanish (tympana in Latin, tof in Hebrew, and duff in Arabic). They have a long history in the Iberian peninsula, and are deeply linked with religious ritual and symbolism in local Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. It is especially associated with women, and in artistic iconography the frame drum is associated with Miriam in particular. 

To learn more on the symbolism of the frame drum in medieval Iberia, check out the extensive work of Mauricio Molina (e.g. 2007 and 2010). The frame drum’s importance continues for contemporary women in Spain and Portugal, as well as in the Middle East, as shown by Judith Cohen (2008) and Veronica Doubleday (1999). As Cohen writes, "perhaps [for contemporary Spanish and Portuguese women] playing the adufe and singing is an affirmation — for themselves, for each other, and maybe for the community as a whole — of their strength: physical, emotional and aesthetic."

Happy Anniversary! Two Years of Henna Blogging

This past weekend marked the 2-year anniversary of this blog! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging about henna for 2 years. In honour of this milestone I thought I’d share some fun statistics and search queries from the past 2 years… Thanks for accompanying us this far!

In the past 2 years, I have researched, written and posted 59 posts (this one is the 60th — and there are four finished draft posts coming in the queue!), which averages out to 2.5 posts every month. Not bad! In total, not counting this post, I’ve written over 86 thousand words (86,288 to be precise) of henna research on this blog, which would come out to roughly 153 single-spaced pages in Times New Roman 12… Practically a whole book's worth!

The most popular post (by pageviews) is actually not a henna-related post but this post about Ethiopian Jewish tattooing traditions; the most popular henna post is this post on Persian henna in the photographs of Antoin Sevruguin. The majority of my blog readers, unsurprisingly, come from the US and Canada; but thousands of readers have also found my blog from France, Russia, Germany, the UK, Israel, Morocco, India, Greece, Indonesia, Ukraine, and Australia. All in all, over the last two years, my blog has been viewed over 40,000 times.

The History of Harqus: Temporary Facial Decoration in North Africa

I’ve been swamped with thesis research and planning my upcoming move (!) so I apologize if posts have not been coming as regularly. My thesis (on demons in North African Judaism) has also brought up lots of interesting material on henna, so hopefully I can share some of that over the next few posts.

For now, though, I’d like to address an issue which has been floating around the internet for a while: the North African facial art known as ḥarqūs. I’ve seen a few posts on my tumblr referencing it with some misconceptions, so I thought I’d take some time to clarify things and offer some primary sources (both texts and images!).

The entry for ḥarqus from Belkassem Ben Sedira's Arabic-French dictionary (Algeria), 1882.

To begin with, how do we spell it? In standard academic transcription, the Arabic word حرقوس would be written as ḥarqūs, although in some areas of the Maghreb it was pronounced closer to hargus (or hargous in French spelling). Other spellings, like harkus (or harkous) or harkos, are encountered as well. Catherine Cartwright-Jones, who has put some material about it on her site, spells it harquus (with two u’s), following the transliteration system of al-Kitaab, the Georgetown Arabic textbook commonly used for Introductory Arabic throughout the United States, which recommends doubled letters to represent long vowels. While the “two u” spelling has become common on the internet, I prefer not to use it for two main reasons: it does not follow scholarly convention, and it confuses people about the pronunciation (I’ve heard people say “harkwus”). In this post I'll use ḥarqus, except in quotations, where I'll keep whatever spelling the author used. Basically it should be pronounced har-KUS, with a rough ‘h,’ a back-of-the-throat ‘k’ or ‘q,’ and a long ‘u’ as in goose.

Now that we've covered how to spell it and say it, let’s turn to what it is (and is not). Ḥarqus refers to a black ink used for painting the face and hands with small temporary designs. These designs are often very similar (or even identical) to the tattoo designs common in the same areas of North Africa… But ḥarqus is not a tattoo, and the word ḥarqus does not refer to tattooing! Tattooing is known generally as washm or usham in Moroccan Arabic, although many of the tattoos actually have their own names based on the placement and motif (see Herber 1948). It’s true that there is some relationship between them — many designs, as I mentioned, were done both with ḥarqus and tattoo, and tattoo artists also applied ḥarqus (although ḥarqus was also done by individuals at home).

"Fatima and Manoubia applying makeup," Alexandre
Roubtzoff, Tunis, 1917.

But before I get too distracted by tattooing traditions (which are well deserving of their own post), let’s get back to ḥarqus. The word itself is unusual in that it has four root letters; Herber suggests that the word itself ultimately derives from the Greek khalkos, ‘copper,’ although I suspect it is related to the root ḥrq, ‘to burn.’ In some Amazigh communities it was known as tanast.

Ḥarqus is essentially a gall ink, made from the tannic acid of oak galls and iron or copper sulfate, which produces a intensely deep black ink, lasting for a few days on living skin and permanent on parchment (a very similar ink is used in Jewish communities to this day for writing Torah scrolls). It was (and is still) used throughout the Maghreb, mainly Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; a similar cosmetic was also used in the Arabic peninsula, known there as khiḍab (another subject for a future blogpost). When made at home, poorer women sometimes used just a simple mixture of soot and oil, but ‘professional’ recipes for ḥarqus show the variety of organic and non-organic ingredients:

The First Indian Mehndi Design? Rare Henna in a Mughal Painting

The things I do for you, dear readers! This blogpost almost got me thrown out of a museum… But such is the life of a henna researcher.

The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto

This week I went to the Aga Khan Museum, a phenomenal new museum of Islamic art (a must-see for anyone visiting Toronto!) sponsored by the current leader of the Ismaili Muslim community, His Highness Shah Karim Aga Khan IV. 

A 300-million dollar project (including an adjacent community centre), the museum displays thousands of artifacts from across the Islamic world, including textiles, ceramics, metalwork, illuminated manuscripts, and Qur’ans.

In particular, I was interested in the special exhibit, “Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin” — paintings and drawings from India, 1550-1850, on loan from the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) from the private collection of British abstract artist Howard Hodgkin. I suspected that there might be some interesting examples of henna… And I was right!

This is a crucial period in the history of Indian henna (and by "India" here I mean the entire Indian subcontinent, of course, not only the modern political state). It seems likely that the use of henna for body art was introduced to India by the Mughals, a Persianate dynasty that entered India in 1526; and we know that by the 20th century henna art was being done in India in patterns — so the origins of Indian henna patterns must lie somewhere in between! But when? Indian mehndi art is one of the most well-known traditions of henna art today — but as a historian, I'd love to know how far back we can trace it.

Karaim, Kena, and Kopecks: Henna Among Crimean Karaites

I got a wonderful question on my Tumblr a few days ago and I thought I’d feature the answer here too.

 “Hi!! Do you have any record of Crimean Karaite henna traditions? All I have to go on is your post about henna customs in Turkey/the Balkans, and also in an article about modern Crimean Karaites it said the woman being interviewed had hennaed hair.”

A great question! Before I jump into the answer, some background for people unfamiliar with Crimean Karaites:

The Karaites are a sect of Judaism which attempts to live only according to the TaNaKh [Hebrew Bible], and does not recognize the halakhic [legal] authority of the Talmud or later Rabbinic thought; non-Karaite Jews are referred to as Rabbanites. Today, most Karaites live now live in Israel or the United States; in the past, there were large Karaite communities in Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq, as well as many Karaite Jews in the Crimean peninsula (as well as pockets in Lithuania and mainland Ukraine).

Henna traditions among Egyptian Karaites were previously featured here; now we’ll investigate henna among Crimean Karaites, known as Karaim or Krymkaraylar (there was also a Rabbanite Jewish community in Crimea, known as Krymchaks). How the Jews (Karaite or Rabbanite) got to the Crimean Peninsula is a blogpost for another time... Suffice it to say that according to the 1897 Russian Imperial Census there were 12,894 Karaites in the Russian Empire, of which 5,400 lived in the Crimean Peninsula, 800 in Lithuania, 200 in Volhynia, and the remainder elsewhere. Today there are perhaps four thousand European Karaites, with about a thousand living in Europe and the remainder living in Israel or North America.

A Karaite kenesa [synagogue], Vilnius, built in 1921.

It might be surprising that we would look for henna traditions among Crimean Karaites. After all, Crimea sits in the Black Sea between Russia and the Ukraine, not places traditionally associated with henna. But it’s important to remember that the Crimean peninsula was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire under the Crimean Tatars until 1783, and even after it became part of Russia, there was still a heavy cultural influence from Turkey. And of course, no matter how much I learn about henna, I am always surprised by how far it has travelled and how diverse its traditions are!

The History and Symbolism of Haroset... With Recipes!

We're taking a break from henna-related posts to compile some resources about haroset, a traditional Passover food. We'll be back to henna after the holiday!

The Passover seder includes a series of symbolic foods placed on a seder plate, most of which are explained over the course of the meal: the matzah, the parsley, the bitter herbs, the shankbone... But one element is left unexplained: the haroset, a paste-like mixture of fruit, nuts, and spices, differing wildly in recipe from community to community. Although it is eaten with matza and maror during korekh, just before the meal, there is no discussion of its significance or acknowledgement of its symbolism.

Haroset is not mentioned in the Biblical descriptions of Passover, which stipulate only the eating of a sacrificial lamb (qorban pesah) with unleavened bread (matza) and bitter herbs (maror). The word haroset first appears in the Mishnah (Pesahim 10:3) and seems to be related to the Hebrew heres or harsit, meaning clay. The sages explain that haroset is part of the seder (along with matza, greens, and two cooked dishes) but not obligatory; Rabbi El'azar ben Tsadoq disagrees and maintains that haroset is, in fact, part of the mitzva of Pesah.

Expanding on the Mishnah, the Talmud (BT Pesahim 115b-116a) explains that haroset was used for dipping the greens into, and that before Passover the spice merchants of Jerusalem used to call out, “Come, buy the spices for the mitzva [of haroset]” (implying that it was part of the commandment). The Jerusalem Talmud (JT Pesahim 10:3) notes that it is also called dukkeh because it is pounded [dakha] into a paste. The Babylonian Talmud adds that the haroset was thought to counteract something in the maror called kappa — a bad enzyme? kind of worm? — but leaving the maror in too long, one rabbi warned, would allow the sweetness of the haroset to neutralize the essential bitterness of the maror.

Maror, apparently a giant artichoke, in the Sarajevo Haggada
(Barcelona, ca. 1350).

But what does the haroset represent? The haroset is often explained as symbolizing the clay that the Israelites used to make bricks during their labour in Egypt. So then why is it so good? Haroset is one of the most popular foods at the seder, and it is usually consumed in much larger quantities than the bitter herbs or even the parsley. If it symbolizes the hard work of slavery, then fruit and spices are not the immediate logical choices.

The Roaring Twenties: Henna in 1920s Marrakech

I am super excited to be co-presenting at a weekend conference in NYC, Feb. 28-Mar. 1, devoted to Moroccan henna (and tickets are still on sale, until Feb. 20! Sign up here). I thought I’d devote a quick post to an interesting piece of Moroccan henna history that crossed my desk… For more, you’ll have to come to our workshop (FB event here)!

A while back, I received a gorgeous and mysterious postcard from Sarah Corbett, founder of the Henna Cafe Marrakech (a wonderful centre for henna and education), titled simply “Le Henné” [The Henna], showing a young girl sitting outside looking at the camera while having her foot hennaed by another woman.

"The Henna," postcard, Marrakech, ca. 1920, by Félix.

Then this week I came across what I thought was the same photo in Essai de Folklore Marocain [An Essay on Moroccan Folklore], a ethnographic work about popular beliefs in Morocco published in 1926 by Françoise Legey, an Algerian-born French doctor and educator working in Marrakech. Looking closely, though, it is actually a different photo, but taken during the same session.

Period Henna: A Resource Guide for Henna in the SCA

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a member of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), although I've been to a few events, and I've met several henna artists who are active members. The SCA is an international organization of historical re-enactment, devoted to the study, recreation, and practice of the "Middle Ages" (loosely defined as post-Roman Empire, pre-1600). SCA members develop a "persona," a character of sorts from a specific time and place, and aim to recreate that person's life "in period" — as close as possible to what clothes they would have worn, what foods they would have eaten, what crafts they would have made, etc.

I'm presenting about henna at a local SCA event and I realized as I was putting my information together that it might be helpful for other artists and enthusiasts, so here you go! This is basically a compilation of previous research that I've done with links to further resources. Feel free to comment or email me with any additional sources or questions — I'd love to hear from you.

Background

There aren't a lot of sources on the early (pre-medieval) history of henna, and I've outlined most of them on my website, here and here. 

Venus with red (hennaed) hair, 1st-2nd century CE

Essentially, it appears that the origins of henna lie primarily around the western coast of the Mediterranean (contemporary Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Turkey, etc.), where it was used as a perfume and hair dye. 

Henna continued to be known and used in the Greco-Roman world, and traveled into Roman North Africa and even into mainland Europe. We have no direct evidence of henna's use as body art in the ancient world but it seems likely that they used it to dye skin as well as hair.

By the rise of Islam, henna was known as a medium for body art and was seen as feminine adornment in particular, although men used it as well to dye hair and beards. Early Islamic sources indicate that it was used by Jews and pagans in the Arabian peninsula, and that it was associated with joy and celebrations. It was favoured by the Prophet and his family and using henna became part of the sunnah [encouraged behaviour] and a mark of piety. There's more about henna in early Islam here and here.

There are two main areas where henna would have been an important part of cultural aesthetics during the 'SCA Period' — the Iberian peninsula (al-Andalus) / North Africa, and Persia. I'll offer some sources below for each of them, and then some reflections on what kinds of henna would not be "period."

Henna For All Ages: Henna and Childhood (50th post!)

Welcome to 2015, and welcome to our 50th blogpost! I’ve had a great time sharing my research with all of you and look forward to much more!

I asked on our Facebook page for suggestions for our 50th post and got a lot of interesting suggestions. We’ll get to them all eventually (and you can always submit more!)... For now, we’ll take one of our reader’s questions: 

“[What about] something that relates to the interaction between children and henna culture? Not sure how much there is there, but it's always been something I've been curious about.”

A great question! And there is definitely plenty to talk about. I know that many henna artists have introduced their kids to henna at a young age, so hopefully they’ll enjoy learning about these historical precedents.

Some of the earliest henna records involve children! Archaeologists have found children’s mummies from ancient Egypt with hennaed hair and nails, like the adults. Unfortunately we don’t know whether the henna was part of the funerary preparations or whether it was used during life. A papyrus from Hellenistic Egypt records that a child was buried with three branches: ebony for shade, a grapevine for drink, and henna for perfume (Smith 2009: 280-281).

An infant mummy from Roman Egypt (ca. 18-134 CE) with
hennaed hair, from Jackowski et al.

Say Yes to the Dress: Jewish Henna Clothing

I often get emails asking me what to wear to a henna ceremony, or if I provide traditional costumes for henna ceremonies. I don’t yet (I wish I did!), but I thought I would devote a blogpost exploring some of the traditional clothing associated with Jewish henna ceremonies.

Here are some examples of the traditional clothing worn at Jewish henna ceremonies across the world. Some of this was generally similar to the festive clothes worn by their Muslim, Hindu, or Christian neighbours, depending on the area, although much of it was uniquely Jewish. Often the “henna dress” would be worn for the wedding as well, and often at festive celebrations thereafter, but sometimes it was worn only on this one occasion.

Morocco

Keswa kbira, Rabat, late 19th century.
In the Jewish Museum, NYC.

In most of northern and central Morocco, the henna night was the time of the traditional festive dress, known in Judeo-Arabic as el-keswa el-kbira, “the Grand Dress.” In Haketía (Judeo-Spanish), it was known as the traje de la berberisca, “the dress of the Berberisca,” a term for the henna ceremony; the dress itself was also sometimes called berberisca. 

While this is derived from the word Berber, it is clear that the dress came with the Sephardi megorashim [exiles] to Morocco — it was not worn by the Amazigh Jewish communities of southern Morocco. I'm still not sure where the word berberisca became attached to the henna ceremony... I wonder if they called it berberisca because it was modeled after, or was seen as resembling, the henna traditions of the indigenous Moroccan Jewish toshavim.

The dress, which shares some similarities with medieval Spanish clothing, actually has eight parts: a skirt (zeltita), a bodice (ktef), a short-sleeved jacket (gombaz), separate long sleeves (kmam), a woven silk belt (hzam), a silk scarf (panuelo or fechtul), embroidered shoes, and a headband. The fabric is velvet, usually red or blue, with gold and silver embroidery. The various motifs (suns, roses, trees, birds, etc.) all add to the significance of the dress and its symbolism on this ritual of passage. It would continue to be worn after the wedding on holidays or other celebrations, and of course it would be passed on in a family from mother to daughter.

Simy Monsonego in her keswa kbira,
Fes, ca. 1941.

No Paisleys? A History of Indian Henna Designs

What Do You Mean, No Paisleys? A Short History of Modern Indian Henna Designs

I had a great time participating in HennaCon, a conference for henna artists, in Camarillo a few weeks ago, and now at the Windy City Mehndi Meet in Chicago (and next week at the Polar Sling in Minneapolis!). One of my presentations covers the history of henna until the present day (an ambitious task, I know!) and I mentioned that the style that we think of today as “Indian” henna, with flowers, paisleys, scalloped fill, and other motifs stacked one after the other, is a modern innovation post-1970s. People were surprised to hear this, so I thought I’d share a few interesting early images of Indian henna. And I’m always happy to see more — readers, if you have any old photos lying around, or memories of henna in India before the 70s, send them my way!

It is not clear (to me, at least) how long henna has been done in India. Parashuram Krishna Gode, a Sanskrit scholar, suggested several identifications of henna in medieval Indian literature, although none are particularly certain (Gode 1948). Whether it predates the Muslim conquest of Sindh in 712 CE, the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206, or even the arrival of the Persian Mughals in 1526, is difficult to say. I admit that I have no training in Indology so I am completely out of my field here, and I would welcome any assistance or constructive critiques.

A Mughal Indian portrait, 1628, possibly of
Mumtaz Mahal — note the hennaed
fingertips. In the Freer-Sackler Museum.

What is clear is that it was only after the Mughal arrival that henna took off in a big way. Henna had been used in Iran already for hundreds of years, as depicted in Persian art and literature, and in Persian paintings of the 13th through 17th centuries we see the development of henna into an elaborate art.

Mughal-era paintings from India often depict women with hennaed hands and feet, but unlike Persian paintings the henna is never shown in designs, but always dipped fingertips or solid palms and feet, as far as I have seen. This doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t doing designs — but if they were, they didn’t depict them.

Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631), wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, is often credited with the introduction of henna (or henna designs) to India, although this is impossible to prove. We do know that henna was being used in the royal courts of the time — Shah Jahan’s father, Jahangir, records in his memoirs that the hinna-bandi (the Persian term for the henna ceremony) for his youngest son, Shahryar, was held in the palace of his mother, Maryam uz-Zamani, in 1621, but provides no additional information (Rogers 1914, pg. 202). 

Similarly, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal’s son, Dara Shikoh, had a hinna-bandi ceremony in 1633 where his hands were hennaed, but apparently without designs (Qanungo 1952, pp. 9-10), and the same was true of his brother Aurangzeb’s henna ceremony in 1637 (Sarkar 1912, pp. 58-59).

European reports of the time also observed that henna was done without designs. Francisco Pelsaert (1595-1630), a Dutch merchant, reported in 1626 that “the women employed for the purpose anoint the bridegroom, and rub his hands and feet with mehndi (a powder made into a paste), till they are quite red; this is supposed to have been sent by the bride, and the occasion is called Mehndi Day in consequence” (Pelsaert 1925, pg. 82). 

"Maiden with Parakeet" (detail), Golkonda
(Hyderabad), 1670, currently in the Met.

Similarly, Niccolao Manucci (1639-1717), an Italian mercenary and writer who spent the last six decades of his life at the Mughal court, similarly wrote (Manucci 1907, pp. 340-341):

All women in India are in the habit of scenting their hands and feet with a certain earth [the translator’s note explains that the word is posso, literally mud], which they call mendy, which colours the hands and feet red, in such a way that they look as if they had on gloves.

All the descriptions of henna in India that I can find, from the 17th century all the way into the 19th and early 20th century, agree with the visual record — they describe henna applied solidly to the hands and feet without designs. For example, Jaffur Shureef, a Hyderabadi Muslim scribe, recorded the following in his book on Islam in India, written for colonial administrators (1832, pp. 102-104):

[For weddings, they prepare] the leaves of the Maynh-dee tree (Lawsonia spinosa, Lin. or Eastern privet), together with a little catechu, areca-nut and the stalks of betel-leaves: triturated with rice gruel, or water… The women call the bride to them, and with their own hands apply the maynh-dee to her hands and feet (i.e. to the inside of the hands and nails of the fingers, and to the soles of the feet and nails of the toes)… The next day, in the same manner as the huldee [turmeric] and maynh-dee came from the bridegroom's to the bride's, it is carried from her house to his [and] the bride’s-women come to apply maynh-dee to the bridegroom.

So when do we start seeing designs? Pictures of Indian henna that I've seen from the 1960s show mainly stripes across the fingers or feet (like alta), or large simple spirals. Some of the earliest records of patterns that I have been able to find come from the work of Jogendra Saksena, a Rajasthani folklorist, artist, and writer, whose sister was apparently a henna artist herself. I have not been able to find much biographical information about Saksena, but according to his own account he first began collecting henna designs at the end of 1948, when I assume he was a young man.

Jogendra's sister hennaing his wife
Prem. From Art of Rajasthan (1979).

In 1954 he was appointed the first curator of the Sir Chhotu Ram museum in Sangaria, and he later worked for the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in New Delhi. He was also involved in the Albert Hall museum in Jaipur, where at his recommendation they installed a small gallery of Rajasthani henna designs (drawn on what look like ceramic model hands). 

If anyone goes to Jaipur — let me know if it’s still there! For all I know, Saksena himself may still be alive today (he would be at least in his late 80s).

In 1979, he published Art of Rajasthan: Henna and Floor Decorations, a book which he claimed he had waited to publish for thirty years; in it he recorded descriptions of how and when henna was done in Rajasthan, with various folk songs, anecdotes and proverbs… And, most relevant for our purposes, 16 pages of henna designs, mostly drawings but some photographs.

Unfortunately, he notes that “it is regretted that as most of the mehndi designs reproduced here have been collected from various sources, it is not possible to mention the place of their collection” (pg. 201). It seems that he re-drew them all for publication from various notes of his and other sources. All his sketches are dated 1976 (and some of them appeared in an earlier article of his, in 1977). So basically, any design in the book could have been recorded anytime between 1948 and 1976.

Saksena does divide the designs into ‘Old Mehndi’ and ‘New Mehndi,’ indicating that the 'Old Mehndi' designs were those he collected from 1948 onwards into the 1960s, and the 'New Mehndi' were those that he had collected recently (i.e. the 1970s). For him, the differences in design are that the old style encloses the palm in a square to cover the whole hand and fingers, while the new style covers only the centre of the palm, or even forms an assymetrical strip (pg. 78-79). In his description of ‘Old Mehndi’, he names a wide variety of designs, including:

• lahariya — ‘waves,’ a design with chevron, fishbone, or zigzag fill, symbolic of surging emotions and the joy of the rainy season
• chunari — ‘tie-dye,’ a design done in reverse with a lime resist
• ghevar — ‘disk-shaped sweet,’ a design centred around a circular shape, symbolic of the devotion to family shown during the Teej festival
• chaupar — ‘board game,’ a design featuring a checkerboard, symbolic of the meeting of lovers

"Old Mehndi" designs from Saksena (1979), probably collected
in the early 50s. He identifies them as: bichura ("scorpion," top left),
katvan phulya ("floral grid," top right); lahariya ("waves," bottom
 left) and chah-dankiya ("hexagram," bottom right).

He does provide some examples of ‘New Mehndi,’ describing them as “trendy” or “modern fashion designs,” which include large paisley shapes, mandalas surrounded by empty space, and floral strips which go across the hand.

An example of what Saksena terms a "New Mehndi" design,
featuring a large keri (mango-paisley), late 70s.

Thus it seems that the style that we know today as ‘Indian’ begins to emerge only in the late 70s. By the 1980s, the henna patterns in photos and design books correspond to what we would expect from Indian mehndi — but the historical evidence reminds us to be careful in calling it “traditional” without any caveats. And of course, Indian henna (like all henna traditions) has continued to develop and evolve. A henna design that was top-of-the-line even only 15 or 20 years ago would today be seen as terribly old-fashioned.

Henna art by Shenaz Hooda, featured in the film Painted Bride, by
Susan Slyomovics and Amanda Dargan, 1990.

But to me, that’s the wonderful thing about henna, the ever-changing, always-beautiful, ephemeral art! It lasts for an instant, and its memories last forever. What do you think henna styles will look like decades from now? What will 'traditional' henna look like? What will the trendy "modern fashion designs" be? Only time will tell.

Bibliography
Gode, Parashuram Krishna. Studies in the History of Indian Plants: History of Mendi or Henna (Between B.C. 2000 and A.D. 1850). Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. 28, 1948, pp. 14-25.
Manucci, Niccolao. Storia do Mogor, or Mogul India, 1653-1708 (translated by William Irvine). London, John Murray, 1907.

Pelsaert, Francisco. Jahangir’s India: the Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert (translated by W. H. Moreland). Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1925.

Qanungo, Kalika Ranjan. Dara Shukoh. Kolkata: S. C. Sarkar, 1952.

Rogers, Alexander (trans.). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, or Memoirs of Jahangir, from the Thirteenth to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Year of his Reign. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1914.

Saksena, Jogendra. Henna for Happiness. The UNESCO Courier, February 1977, pp. 18-22.

Saksena, Jogendra. Art of Rajasthan: Henna and Floor Decorations. New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1979.

Sarkar, Jadunath. History of Aurangzib, Mainly Based on Persian Sources. Kolkata: M. C. Sarkar, 1912.

Shureef, Jaffur. Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Moosulmans of India, Comprising a Full and Exact Account of their Various Rites and Ceremonies (translated by G. A. Herklots). London: Parbury, Allen, and Co., 1832.