Happy Nowruz! Henna for the Springtime New Year

Happy Nowruz! This weekend marks the spring equinox, March 21, marked by many communities across Central and South Asia as Nowruz (نوروز‎, also transliterated Norooz, Newroz, Nauruz, etc.), the New Year.

This ancient holiday originated in Zoroastrian Persia, and is celebrated today by many ethnic groups throughout Central and South Asia, the Balkans, and the Levant (and, of course, in the diaspora), including Persians, Afghans, Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Desis, and more; it's also not restricted to any religion, and is celebrated by Zoroastrians, Muslims, Jews, Alevis, and Baha’is, among others. There are many wonderful customs associated with Nowruz, including a table set with seven symbolic items each starting with the letter ‘sin’ (haft sin in Persian) or seven kinds of fruit (haft mewa); jumping over a fire as a celebration of the victory over darkness and a cleansing beginning for the year; spring cleaning; decorated eggs (like East European pysanky); new clothes; and of course, festive gatherings with many delicious traditional foods.

Families celebrating Nowruz outside Tehran, 1958; photo by Inge Morath.

Henna is also a traditional part of the festivities! The first records of Nowruz henna that I've found come from the late 19th century, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were mentioned in earlier Persian texts — I welcome the help of any Iranologists who might have references! But it's certainly attested well enough by European travelogues.

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.

Henna For Peace: Body Art of the Yezidis, Christians, and Jews of northern Iraq

With all the terrible news coming out of Iraq these days I thought I’d take a departure from my research on Jewish henna and North Africa to cast a quick spotlight on some of the body art traditions of Iraq’s ethno-religious minorities.

The news is difficult to bear, and it’s especially hard to feel helpless when faced with so much violence and destruction. If you’re moved to donate to aid organizations working in the area, I know that the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East has been doing amazing work in the refugee camps, as has UNICEF and the Iraqi Red Crescent. Of course, if you feel political action is necessary, you may wish to reach out to your local member of parliament, senator, or other government official. And if you’re looking for some more background, I found these maps very helpful.

A map of ethnic groups in Iraq (purple = Kurdish, yellow = Sunni Arab,
green = Shi'a Arab, and others), by Dr. Michael Izady.

But this is a blog about body art, so I thought I would devote some space to body art traditions in the region among minorities in northern Iraq: Yezidis, Christians, and Jews.

Henna and Hametz: Jewish Henna Traditions for Passover

The holiday of Passover (or Pesah in Hebrew) is almost upon us! In between the matza ball soup, 12 types of haroset, and chocolate-caramel matza crunch (so good!) I thought I’d offer a few observations on henna’s connection to Passover.

Jewish singers with hennaed palms, Tissint,
ca. 1934, photo by Jean Besancenot.

Since henna was a symbol of celebration, it’s not surprising that it would make an appearance on Passover. One fascinating account comes from a British soldier known only as “Colonel Scott,” who had joined the forces of the great Algerian leader ‘Abd al-Qadir (or Abd-el-Kader, as Scott spells it).

On April 5, 1841, Scott was staying in the town of Taza, in the Highlands of Morocco, which happened to be the day before Passover. He writes: “The Jews have been extremely busy the last few days, white-washing their houses, and making preparations for the celebration of the feast of the passover, which commences to-morrow” (1842, pg. 53). Sounds about right!

As Beautiful As Queen Esther: Henna Traditions for Purim

This upcoming weekend is the holiday of Purim, so I’m already elbow-deep in hamantaschen and trying desperately to come up with a clever costume. Any suggestions? 

In the meantime, I thought I’d share some information about henna traditions for Purim.

Jewish girl carrying water
for the bath, Sundur, Iraqi
Kurdistan, mid-20th century.

First of all, there is a connection to the story of Purim as found in the Bible. The book of Esther describes how Esther enters the Beit haNashim (the House of the Women) for twelve months: for the first six months they were anointed with myrrh, and for the last six months with ointments, described as תמרוקים, tamruqim (Esther 2:3). 

What is the meaning of tamruq? The word is traditionally interpreted as being some sort of cleansing or purifying ointment; it comes from the root m.r.q., the basic meaning of which is ‘to rub.’

Could the tamruq have been henna? It’s possible, but there’s no evidence for certain. Henna may have been known in ancient Persia, although the closest proof we have for that is that Pliny mentions henna as one of the ingredients in a ‘Parthian Royal Ointment’ (Historia Naturalis, XIII.2), so we can’t say for sure. 

If the tamruq was henna, it would explain Esther 2:9, where the head eunuch takes a liking to Esther and ensures that she is the first of all the women to get her tamruqim, thus granting Esther the darkest and longest-lasting stains. Whatever it was, it worked, since Esther finds favour in the king’s eyes and is chosen as the queen.

But what about historical henna traditions to celebrate Purim in Jewish communities? Since henna was a commonly-used cosmetic, especially at times of celebration, it’s not surprising that there are records of Jewish communities using henna to beautify themselves before Purim.

Ringing It In: henna traditions for celebrating New Year's

With 2014 fast approaching, I thought I’d look at some of the ways that henna has been used to celebrate the New Year.

Some of you may be familiar with the “Persian New Year,” Nowruz, celebrated at the Spring Equinox (March 21). This ancient holiday is Zoroastrian in origin but is celebrated today by many ethnic and religious groups, including also Muslims, Alevis, and Baha’is, throughout Central Asia. There are many fascinating customs associated with Nowruz, including a table set with seven symbolic items each starting with the letter ‘sin’ (in Persian); jumping over a fire as a celebration of the victory over darkness and a cleansing beginning for the year; and many delicious traditional foods.

A young Nasser al-Din Shah, ready for Nowruz

Henna is also a traditional part of the festivities! French traveller Gabriel Bonvalot noticed in Salyan (today in Azerbaijan) that men, women and children would get their hands, feet, beards, and hair hennaed for Nowruz (Bonvalot, 1889, pg. 27). British archaeologist James Theodore Bent noticed the same in Izadkhvast, Iran, describing how “no Persian however poor would enter on a new year without some new garment, and they all looked particularly clean, for it is the custom on the day before the feast for every one to go to the bath, to have his hair dyed black and his nails dyed yellow with henna” (1890, pg. 328). Similarly, the missionary Samuel Graham Wilson, whom we’ve met before on this blog, described the Nowruz customs he saw in Iran in 1895, including the “Haft Sin” plate; he notes:

As the great day approaches, every man says to himself, “Well, to-morrow is Noruz. I must get my head shaved, go to the bath, dye my hands, nails, and beard with henna, put on a clean skull-cap, and see if the tailor has my new coat ready. I must buy some sugar and tea, tobacco and candy, and then I shall be ready for all comers.”

This usage has continued into recent times. Ethnomusicologist Veronica Doubleday, who lived in Herat, Afghanistan, in the mid-1970s, describes how her friends hennaed their hands and feet for Nowruz (1988, pg. 66). And henna is still used to celebrate Nowruz today, as noted by Nasim Fekrat; and it’s not just people who get henna! Hushang ‘Alam wrote in the Encyclopedia Iranica that “the mane and tails of horses, donkeys, and mules were hennaed in Shiraz during the Nowruz until a few decades ago” (2003). I haven’t seen any sources describing Baha’i or Zoroastrian henna for Nowruz but I’m fairly confident they would share in these traditions.

Hennaed donkeys, Iran, 1956. Photo by Inge Morath.

Pictures of Persia: henna in the photography of Antoin Sevruguin

While looking for documentation of Persian Jewish henna, I came across the photographs of Antoin Sevruguin, and they were so wonderful that I wanted to share this resource. I realized that my intention in starting this blog was to share things that I find as I go along my research, not to go out of my way to research new posts (which is what the last few posts have been). So here’s a short(er) post with some awesome photos! Enjoy!

Antoin Sevruguin was a Georgian-Iranian who operated a photography studio first in Tabriz, and then in Tehran, from the 1870s until his death in 1933. He also traveled around the country on various expeditions taking photographs of monuments, archaeological sites, and the various peoples and cultures of Iran. He was a celebrated photographer in his day both in Iran and abroad, although many of his photographs were distributed without attribution (for example, in the 1921 National Geographic issue on Persia), and unfortunately thousands of his negatives were destroyed in a fire in 1908. For more information see the biographies here and here.

The Smithsonian collections in the Freer Sackler Museum of Asian Art contains about a thousand photographs attributed to Sevruguin, including glass plate negatives and albumen photoprints. They have all been digitized and you can sort through them here by searching “Sevruguin”. This is an amazing resource for visualizing 19th and 20th century Iran!

I trawled through them myself and found lots of interesting instances of henna, including several photographs that were identified as Jews — there is sometimes a discrepancy between Sevruguin’s handwritten notes on the negatives and the curator’s identification; in those cases I went with Sevruguin’s notes, since the museum’s identifications often seem problematic (a issue also noted by Armstrong-Ingram, pg. 412). Now onto the photographs! And please check out the archives yourselves!

Jewish village girl, ca. 1875

This photograph was already familiar to me, but I didn’t realize it was by Sevruguin, so it was a delight to come across it again. It shows a Jewish village girl bedecked with elaborate silver jewelry, a large floral wrap ('abayye), and hennaed fingernails. 

Her large disk and sheath amulets suggest that she is from the western part of Iran, perhaps near Kermanshah, Tabriz, or Hamadan, all areas with large Jewish communities. Sevruguin's first studio was in Tabriz; did he photograph her there? Or was this picture taken on one of his photographic expeditions? 

It is likely, because of her threaded eyebrows and forehead ornament (mu-band), that she is a newlywed bride; her hennaed nails suggest that it is about a month after her wedding (Sahim's description says that she is "dressed up for her wedding," 2002, pg. 180, but given her hennaed nails it seems likely that the photo was taken a few weeks after the ceremony). 

Resistance is Futile: Henna in Reverse, Part II

This is part two of the series that we began last week investigating sap and wax resists. Those techniques use a liquid mixture that is drawn on the skin and dries, while the techniques we’re looking at in this post use malleable materials like fabric and dough to shape the designs that will block the henna.

One basic type of this resist uses a simple dough (flour and water) that can be rolled out into thin strands and arranged on the skin. One example of this technique comes from the descriptions of Bahraini wedding ceremonies in the 1970s recorded in Holes’ work on Bahraini Arabic dialects (2005, pg. 164):

Over the following two days [before the wedding] a specialist woman artist (xaḍḍaba [lit. painter]) applied henna to her palms, fingers and feet. This process was called ḥannat ‘ağin [dough henna]. A thin dough would be rolled, twisted and applied to the bride's skin in geometric patterns, leaving some of the skin bare. The red henna dye was then applied to the dough and skin and allowed to dry overnight. In the morning the dough was removed, leaving the henna pattern on the skin. The process was repeated on the third night, known as lēlat il-ḥanna, in order to make the henna tattoos [sic] stand out even more clearly. During these two days, special ditties accompanied the laborious process of decorating the bride.

This technique is apparently still practiced in the Arabian peninsula today; Penni AlZayer described it as she saw it being done in the 1990s in a rural village in al-Sharqiyya, the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. She writes that the hennaya [henna artist] worked by “rolling bits of dough from the bowl beside her into very long thin strings,” and then she “arranged and pressed simple spirals and geometric patterns first onto the palms of the bride’s hands and then the soles of her feet” (AlZayer, 2005, pg. 4). After the patterns were finished, the hennaya covered the bride’s hands and feet with henna paste and let it dry.

Kurdish Jewish woman shaping bread dough,
Israel, mid-20th century

Interestingly, a similar technique was practiced by the Jewish community in Sandor (or Sundur), a small village in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. An elderly immigrant from Sandor described the patterns, including celestial imagery in the palm and spirals around the fingers, that she remembered from her wedding in the 1920s (Sienna, 2011, pg. 88):

They would draw here [in the palm], like a moon, a beautiful drawing. [Noam: how would they do it?] They would make a dough, take dough, and put it on a little bit at a time. They would do it here [on the hands], whatever designs they wanted, and then they would put henna on over it... And then they would do the fingers, one by one, a little dough here [in a spiral], so that it would look nice. [The woman doing the henna] would bring the dough, take a little bit, roll it out thinly, thinly, and then put it on the hands, and then henna [on top]. And then [when it was dry] she would wrap [the bride's hands] up in cloth, so that she wouldn't move [and smudge the henna]. It would come out so beautiful, bright red, a strong colour.

While Henny Harald Hansen describes a Kurdish bride with palms “painted with a sun, a crescent moon and a star” (1961, pg. 130), it is not clear whether that was done with a resist or whether it was simply drawn on the skin. No other description of henna from this region includes reference to a dough resist, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the technique was known and used by women in Turkey and Pakistan as well.