The Hennaed Dove: Henna in Palestinian Culture

Why does the dove always have henna on her feet? Because when Noah sent forth a raven and a dove from the Ark, the raven never came back. Therefore this curse was put upon him: “May your face be black as night”… But the dove returned, and therefore Noah blessed her with every blessing, saying, “May you every month have a pair of young ones” and “May your face forever shine white.” And since that time the dove is born with henna on her feet. — Palestinian folktale, recorded by Crowfoot and Baldensperger (1932)

Palestinian henna has been in the news recently… First, it was Gigi Hadid, who had a henna party last winter and posted a picture on Instagram with the caption that she was “half-Palestinian and proud of it.” Then there was this viral video about an artist in Gaza who uses henna to create landscape paintings. And last month, a friend linked me to this article on Al-Monitor about another henna artist working in Gaza. While the article itself is interesting enough, it quotes self-appointed “expert historian” Naser al-Yafawi with some questionable ‘facts’ about the history of henna… So I thought I’d devote a blogpost to documenting actual sources for the history of henna in Palestinian culture.

Of course, political struggles and intense ideological disagreements make it difficult to discuss any topic related to Palestinian culture, even down to what to call the area under discussion. I’m going to try my best to take a balanced and objective stance in this post, but I apologize if I’ve offended any of my readers, and I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments.

The area we’re dealing with, the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, north of Egypt and south of Lebanon, today comprises the political entities of Syria, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. In the ancient world, this area was home to a variety of Semitic tribes, known as Canaanites, as well as the Israelites (whom most scholars consider to be Canaanites themselves), the ancestors of the Jewish people. 

Henna is mentioned in a small number of Canaanite and Israelite texts, indicating that it was known and used in the region: in the myth cycle of Ba‘al and ‘Anath, a Canaanite text discovered at Ugarit (today in northwest Syria), the goddess ‘Anath is described as using henna as she prepares to rescue her brother-husband from the god of Death, Mot. In the TaNaKh [Hebrew Bible], in Song of Songs, the henna plant is mentioned as growing at ‘Ein Gedi (an oasis near the Dead Sea), and it seems that its sweet-smelling flowers were valued as a source of perfume. Later Greek and Roman authors confirm that henna was grown in the region, mentioning in particular the henna of Ascalon (today Ashkelon, just north of Gaza), and the Mishnah (codified around 200 CE) specifies that henna is considered an agricultural product of the Land of Israel.

The henna plant in From Cedar to Hyssop:
A Study in the Folklore of Plants in Palestine (1932).

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.

Seen in the Yemen: Visiting a Yemeni Henna Artist, 1938

Apologies for the long break with no posts! The end of the semester and the deadline for my thesis, combined with my move, ate up every spare minute of my time. Hopefully now I'll have time to return to more regular blogging.

I’m settling into my new apartment in Minneapolis, and I’m especially grateful for the warm welcome I’ve received from the local henna artist community. I’ve already had the opportunity to work alongside some wonderful artists here and it’s been great to build community together. In appreciation, I thought I’d post this lovely and fascinating story about a visit to a henna artist in Yemen in the late 1930s. I think it’s so important for henna artists to feel a connection to their artistic predecessors, and to recognize that our involvement in this art comes with a long and rich historical legacy.

Freya Stark in local dress, 1936.

The source of this story is Freya Stark (1893-1993), a British-Italian traveller and writer who bravely trekked through the deserts of western Iran and southern Arabia alone (at a time when few women would do so), as well as travelling extensively through Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey. She accompanied the British archaeologist Gertrude Caton Thompson and geologist Elinor Gardner on their 1937-1938 expedition to the Hadhramaut in south-eastern Yemen. Her account of visiting a Yemeni henna artist comes from the published diary of her travel, A Winter in Arabia (1940).

In February 1938, Stark writes, she was in the village of Huraidhah, just in time for ‘Eid al-Adha, the great feast celebrating the near-sacrifice of Ismail and the return from the pilgrimage to Mecca. Of course, any holiday must include some henna, and Stark wanted to join in. She had her hands hennaed by a local artist named ‘Ayesha, who is called “the best beauty specialist of the town.” Stark, as a honoured European visitor, was hosted by the local notables and social elite, and ‘Ayesha was apparently henna artist to the stars — Stark finds her at the house of the family of the local mansab (the position of mansab was an office of tribal leadership whose authority is both social-political and religious, due to their claims of descent from the Prophet).

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.

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.

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.

Henna, Hamsas, and Eyes, Oh My: The Eye as Motif in Moroccan Henna

I’ve settled back from Morocco but I’m still going through my henna photos… One interesting thing I’d thought I’d post about is the use of the eye symbol — l‘ayn — in Moroccan henna.

The eye is a well-known symbol of protection across North Africa, the Mediterranean basin, and Central Asia, appearing on jewelry, textiles, ceramics, amulets, and other crafts. It is an ancient motif, appearing on objects and crafts from ancient Egypt (especially as the eye of Horus) as well as Greece, Rome, and other ancient sites throughout Europe and the Levant.

The symbolic idea is that the eye looks back and breaks the stare of the Evil Eye. The Evil Eye, known simply as l‘ayn among Muslims, and as ‘ain hara‘ among Jews, is an ill-defined negative negative energy which can cause problems ranging from financial problems to physical ailments and even death. There are actually different aspects of the eye — a general, powerful negative spirit which exists independent of human action, which is attracted to certain objects or behaviors (which one might term "The Evil Eye"), and a sort of curse or spell which can be placed (purposefully or inadvertently) on someone by another person (which one might term "an evil eye"). People can invite an evil eye with prideful and boastful behaviour, or have an evil eye cast on them by a jealous relative or spurned neighbour.

An eye amulet for sale in a jewelry store in Meknes.

The Eye was feared by all, and people would go to great lengths to avoid being given an evil eye. Both Jews and Muslims have proverbs to the effect that the Evil Eye is the most frequent cause of death (cf. Stillman, 1970, pg. 82, and Stillman, 1983, pg. 487). 

It can be avoided or deterred in a number of ways — amulets, rituals, prayers — and of course, henna is an especially powerful deterrent, especially when depicting the image of an eye.

Westermarck writes: “Besides the fingers of the hand, there is another means of throwing back the baneful power, l-bas, which emanates from an evil eye, namely, the image of an eye. If baneful energy can be transferred by the eye, it can obviously also be thrown back by the eye. The image of an eye, or a pair of eyes, is therefore very commonly used as a charm” (1926, pg. 459). Sometimes even actual eyes — birds’ eyes or fish eyes — were used as protective charms (Stillman, 1970, pg. 89).

Hey Hannaya: A Moroccan Henna Artist in Action

There's only so much information you can get from asking women on the streets about their henna, so I decided to go to the source and find some ḥannayat ('henna artists' — in Fes they use the word ḥannaya rather than neqasha as in other parts of Morocco). In this post I'm going to feature the work of a local ḥannaya whom I spent some time with on Sunday; hopefully I will be able to see one or two more ḥannayat in action.

A— is the “resident ḥannaya” of Café Clock, a popular restaurant and cultural centre in the medina of Fes (with a sister café that just opened in Marrakech). She has been a henna artist for 17 years, and she began working at Café Clock four years ago. She works there ‘on call’ — if you want henna, you can ask the servers to call her for you, and she shows up within about half an hour. The café also hosts her on Sunday evenings starting at 6:30, when it’s not Ramadan.

A working on a fusion piece.

I first met A one Sunday afternoon at the café; she had come in to henna another client and I asked if I can watch. The client (a young woman from the Netherlands traveling with her father) pointed at a photograph showing two hands hennaed with full bildi (‘old-fashioned’) Fassi henna, but A did a more modern khaleeji/bildi fusion with some open space. The client was satisfied, though, and paid 150 dh (about 18 USD) for both hands.

I wanted to see more of A's traditional Fassi work, however, so I returned with a friend from school who had graciously agreed to be my henna ‘wing-woman’ and help me with my research. 

A sat and patiently answered my questions about henna while my friend R— and her boyfriend J— ate lunch, and then she hennaed my friend while I took photo and video.

A doesn’t work at other cafés or public places; outside of Café Clock her henna income comes from private appointments and brides. She told me that she learnt henna art on her own, without a teacher, and that henna artists in Morocco work alone. “We don’t have any associations for henna artists like writers or teachers have,” she told me somewhat wistfully. 

I wanted to let her know about the wonderful networking and camaraderie that we henna artists have in North America, but I wasn’t sure how to tell her, since I was ‘undercover’ and hadn’t told her that I was a henna artist (in Morocco it’s seen as shameful for men to be involved with henna or have elaborate henna themselves). Maybe I should have — I just don’t know how she would have reacted. I think I also wanted the conversation to be about her, not about me; if I see her again, I'll probably tell her.

A looked over some of the photos I had taken of henna on the streets, and identified the different designs for me, classifying them into two types — bildi, referring to the designs I call ‘true Fassi,’ and romi, ‘modern,’ referring both to the few floral pieces I’d seen and to the confusing fusion pieces which were full coverage but not classic Fassi, which she also called mukhallaṭ, ‘mixed.’ As it turned out, one of the pieces that I had photographed was actually her work on a private client! We had a good laugh about that.

Will the Real Fassi Henna Please Stand Up? Researching Henna in Fes

Ramadan mubarak sa'id! The blessed month of Ramadan has arrived with a bang (literally — they fire the city cannons), the fast has begun, and I am, as hard as it to believe, officially at the halfway mark of my time in Morocco. And now, dear readers, your first long-awaited all-about-henna post.

Walking around in Fes, one sees henna all around — although not as much as I had expected. I would estimate that I only see about 2 or 3 women a day with henna, and sometimes that’s just hennaed nails or palms. But the other part that I didn’t expect was how challenging it would be to document. 

When I see people with nice henna, I’ve tried to ask them for a picture but sometimes it’s just someone passing in the marketplace so I don’t have a chance. Yesterday I saw a woman with her hands covered in fabulous geometric henna, but as I was about to ask her if I could take a photo she jumped in a cab. Even when I do ask I’m often refused — sometimes they politely say no, or just shake their heads and walk away; once a tourist with lovely Fassi strips didn't even respond (I'm assuming she thought I was a street hustler).

Every time, I get this terrible feeling of disappointment, mostly at myself — maybe I could have phrased the question differently? Maybe I should just point at the camera quickly instead of trying to engage in conversation? Maybe I should have asked earlier? Or later?

The fact that I am both male and a foreigner only makes things worse. Last week on my way home from class I saw a (religious) woman with hands and feet covered in gorgeous, fresh henna in heavy Sahrawi [southern Morocco / Sahara] designs. I started to ask her if I could take a picture but her friend interrupted saying that she had to go, and they moved to the other side of the plaza, giving me dirty looks the whole time.

A henna artist at work in Fes — notice that her client is
getting a khaleeji design while she herself is wearing
a fresh geometric 'true Fassi' style design.

Perhaps it’s the ‘One That Got Away’ Syndrome... But I feel like the henna that I haven’t been able to capture has been the nicest henna that I’ve seen. Although, it also makes sense that the women wearing the most traditional henna would also be the most traditional when it comes to taking pictures. 

I know I shouldn’t beat myself up but every time I miss an opportunity or bungle a conversation, it eats at me for the rest of the day. Who knew henna research was so emotionally complicated!

But, enough about my failures. Let’s talk about henna! What’s most interesting about the henna that I have seen is that most of it has not been what I think of as ‘true Fassi’ style, which is easy to recognize but hard to describe: a geometric, non-stacked, layout; triangular/diamond internal division; star/cross/tree/herringbone fill; zigzag edging, etc… 

The most popular style that I have seen is the floral style that Moroccans call khaleeji [Gulf], which varies in quality from excellent to incredibly sloppy. And while khaleeji is what is commonly done for tourists, I have seen plenty of local Moroccans wearing khaleeji as well. 

But more interestingly, several different people that I talked to have identified their henna as Fassi style, while their henna ranges from designs that could have been drawn straight from the ‘Fassi’ section of Moor: A Henna Atlas of Morocco, to people wearing patterns that I would not classify as remotely close to what I think of ‘Moroccan' at all. Is there such a thing as a 'Fassi' style? Is it the same as what we call Fassi style in North America? Is it unique to Fes? So many unanswered henna questions!

We Heart Moroccan Henna: A Design Tutorial from Marrakech, 1977

I had a great private appointment a few days ago with a lovely group of young women who loved henna, and when I showed them some examples of different styles they all chose Moroccan designs! I love doing Moroccan-style henna so I was really thrilled.

One of the best ways to work on your Moroccan style, as with any style, is to look for photos of henna from Morocco and copy them! In an earlier blogpost I explored Moroccan body art in the early 20th century, but here in this post I thought I would share some more modern photos I recently found, which are a fabulous step-by-step documentation of the ‘Moroccan’ style.

The photos were taken in Marrakech in 1977 by Bruno Barbey, a Moroccan-born French photographer (if you like photography, Barbey has several books of his photographs of Morocco which you can see here and here). I found the photos on the website of Magnum Photos, an international photographic co-operative which Barbey joined in 1964. The description states: “For marriage, bride has feets [sic] and hands painted with henne [sic]” — I assume, then, that this photoset shows a bride being prepared for her wedding but I have no more information than that.

What’s wonderful about this collection of photos is that the neqasha [henna artist] is demonstrating the traditional application with a kohl stick (merwed) rather than the newer syringe method which was just becoming popular in the 70s. Even better, Barbey has wonderfully captured the artist at work in a series of images, and so we can see the progression of the design.

The design begins. Bruno Barbey, Marrakech, 1977.

The fill here is typical of this style of Moroccan henna, which is often called ‘Fessi’ (from the city of Fes or Fez) but was also done in Marrakech as well.

Jews with Tattoos? Tattooing Traditions of the Beta Israel

In looking through some statistics for my blog, I discovered that seven people have found my blog by searching “beautiful Ethiopian women.” At the risk of increasing that number, I thought I would devote some time to traditions of body art among the Jewish communities of Ethiopia. While henna is used among Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Ethiopians, in this post I’m going to go (a little) out of my field and talk about tattooing.

The origins of the Ethiopian Jews are murky and, to my mind, irrelevant to this discussion (but see Kaplan 1992, Parfitt 1999, or Weil 2011 for some approaches). Suffice it to say that by the 19th century there was a large community of Jewish Ethiopians, living mostly in the areas of Gondar, Wegera, Semien, Wolqayt and Shire in Tigray (yes, there is both a Gondar and a Shire in Ethiopia; no, it is not Middle Earth). A related community is known as Feresmura or Falashmura, Jews who had converted (or been converted) to Christianity in the nineteenth century, but maintained a separate communal identity. Ethiopian Jews are also known as Beta Israel, ‘the House of Israel’ (an older term, Falasha, literally ‘exiles,’ has been largely rejected by the community).

Ethiopian Jews in Israel celebrating Sigd, Jerusalem, 2010.
Photo by Noam Sienna

In Ethiopia, the Beta Israel practiced a Torah-based form of Judaism — that is, without the additional customs, explanations, festivals, and practices of rabbinic Judaism as codified in the Talmud and later scholars. Since coming to Israel, they have largely been assimilated to the structure of normative Judaism; the Feresmura have also reverted to Jewish practice in Israel. Some excellent introductions are here, here, and here.

One of the most striking features of the Ethiopian Jewish community is their tattooing. Historically, the vast majority of Jewish communities generally refrained from tattooing, even when living in environments with established tattoo traditions, due to the prohibition on tattoos in Leviticus 19:28. Technically, in the Biblical context this was a prohibition on imitating Canaanite mourning practices of cuttings and tattooed inscriptions for the dead. The rabbis, however, eventually identify this with any form of putting ink permanently under the skin, whether writing or drawing, for any purpose. While I’m on the subject, let me remind everyone that tattooing, while thus prohibited, does not disqualify one from burial in a Jewish cemetery or access to any other Jewish service (so hopefully that myth can finally be busted).

Henna History: Now in Hebrew!

An Israeli friend made a special request if I could translate my post on Yemenite Jewish henna into Hebrew... Here it is! Feel free to share with any Israeli or Hebrew-speaking friends.

שלום עליכם! המאמר הבא הוא תרגום המאמר האחרון שכתבתי בבלוג שלי, שאני מנהל בדרך כלל באנגלית. אני חוקר באוניברסיטת טורונטו, מתמקד בטקס החינה ומסורותיה בקהילות ישראל, בצפון אפריקה, המזרח התיכון, ומרכז אסיה. אתם מוזמנים לקרוא יותר על המחקר שלי בבלוג הזה, או באתר הרשמי, ואשמח לשמוע מכם באי–מייל או בתגוביות. ואנא תסלחו לי על העברית, שהיא לא שפת אמי, ואני בטוח שעשיתי טעויות רבות.

הנושא היום: מסורות החינה של יהודי צנעא, תימן.

Lost and Found? Henna Art Among Yemenite Jews

I recently corresponded with a lovely Israeli art student interested in the patterns of Yemenite Jewish henna. I’ve written a little bit about them before but I thought I could expand them into a longer blogpost of their own. Then Sunday night I went to a lecture about Yemenite Jewish history by Professor Isaac Hollander, and I decided that I definitely needed a whole blogpost… Maybe even two.

The Jewish community of Yemen was one of the oldest and most vibrant of the Diaspora, probably dating back to the first centuries of the Common Era, if not even earlier. The earliest records we have of Jewish henna use in Yemen go back to the beginnings of the Islamic period, from the Kitab al-Muḥabbar of Muhammad ibn Habib (composed ca. 840 CE). After that, however, there is a long silence — I have not found any mentions of henna in Yemen until the modern period.

The use of henna among both Yemenite Jews (known as Temanim in Hebrew) and Muslims is described in the travelogues of a number of European writers (Niebuhr, 1772, pp. 65-66; du Couret, 1859, pg. 213; Saphir, 1866, pg. 81), and it is mentioned by Yemenite Jewish scholars as well (Saliḥ, 1779, 2:127; Qarah 1827).

But we still haven’t heard anything about henna patterns (Jewish or non-Jewish)! The earliest record that I’ve seen of henna patterns in Yemen comes from Freya Stark, an indefatigable British explorer (and an incredibly brave woman who travelled alone through the Arabian deserts and Central Asia at a time when few women dared do so). 

Hennaed hands, Ḥaḍramaut, late 1930s. Stark, 1938, pg. 180

She published a series of popular books on her travels, and included some descriptions of henna patterns that she saw (1936, pp. 47, 213):

[At a wedding in Makalla]: The palms of [the women’s] hands [were] reddish brown with heavily scented henna and oil and painted outside in a brown lacework pattern, like a mitten.

[In Tarim]: [The Sultan’s 10-year-old daughter] stood gazing at me, shy and gorgeous, her little hands done in lace patterns and wheels of indigo with henna tips; her hair in seventy-five plaits at least, fluffed out on her shoulders in curls.


Amazingly, Stark also includes a photograph of a woman’s hennaed hands (with the paste on), taken in the late 30s in the Ḥaḍramaut. She describes how the pattern is made “by an artist who lets a thin thread of the paste drip from her forefinger, guiding it into patterns as it does so” (1938, pg. 180).