Henna

Cenas de um casamento: a mão de uma noiva pintada de henna

Desde a primeira vez que vi as pinturas feitas com henna fiquei encantada com a beleza dos desenhos e com o efeito que dão nas mãos... como se acentuassem a sua (já enorme) capacidade de expressão... Um dia gostava que pintassem as minhas mãos assim! :)

Interessante também é saber a origem de tradições como esta, e qual o seu significado. Se quiserem saber um pouco mais leiam abaixo!

A Protecção da Henna

Baraka in Arabic means "blessing". Henna was said to be able to avert evil because it had "baraka", or the quality of "blessedness". Henna was also called nor n-nbi, "the Light of the Prophet" because of it’s usefulness and protective influence. The henna stain was a barrier between the outer world of malevolent spirits, the "Evil Eye", and potentially polluting or injurious forces, and the body and soul of the wearer. It defended the wearer against the attacks of a hostile and dangerous world (Westermarck 1926, vol. 1: 113 and Tauzin, 1998).

Henna stains on the hands were considered to protect the body from head to navel, and stains on the feet offered protection from the "Evil Eye" from the navel to the feet (Tauzin, 1998). Henna was applied to a bride’s feet and shoes repeatedly, presumably to offer additional protection to the woman’s womb. Walnut root, used to darken the lips, and kohl, used to outline the eyes were also believed to have baraka, and to be capable of averting the "Evil Eye", so were used on the sacrificial animal, the boy, and the bride in conjunction with henna (Westermarck 1926, vol 1: 113).

"A grande noite da Henna"

In Fez, five days before the wedding, the bride was taken to the hamam, the village bathhouse, to be purified with both water and henna. Before the bride could safely visit the hamam, women of the bride’s family entered the bath house with a lit candle, and trilled zgrit, a loud, shrill,high pitched ululation, to ward off jnun, who haunted bathhouses. They repeated this ritual for three days to dispel malicious spirits lurking in the drains and sewers that might spoil the desired proceedings. Seven women bathed the bride with seven buckets of water "so that she would have no quarrel with her husband", speaking the words: "L-ma aman u s-sarr ma kan", "The water is safety and quarrel there is none"(Westermarck, 1914: 136). A bride might be divorced if she got along poorly with her husband; villagers believed domestic quarrels were provoked by demons, so they attempted to cleanse the bride of this potential problem.

On her return from the hamam, the bride went behind a curtain which had been set up in her room, and visited with unmarried girls of her own family. After dinner a m’allma l’hannaya, or a professional henna artist, was called in to henna the bride if the family was wealthy enough to afford one. The designs reserved for brides are called l-hanna be t-t’qwisa. (Westermarck 1914: 137)

Women applied henna patterns to the bride’s hands and arms. Henna or black harquus patterns adorned her face. A woman rubbed swak, black walnut, on her lips. A woman dipped an ivory or silver pin into kohl and drew it between her closed eyelashes to blacken her eyelashes and eyelids. After the bride was hennaed and adorned, the men who accompanied the bride were also hennaed. In the Ait Yusi tribe, a married woman who had been married once and never divorced pounded the henna leaves into a fine pulp, imbuing the henna paste with the luck of marriage. If a divorced woman pounded the henna, her bad luck would transfer to the bride and she would be divorced (Westermarck 1914: 149). Women ornamented the bride with henna from her feet to her knees with patterns that would protect her from the evil eye. Slippers sent by the groom were put on her hennaed feet, with a needle or salt placed in the right slipper as charms against the jnun. When she removed her slippers, the scraps of henna were carefully shaken out into water, so that they could not be used in magic spells against her (Westermarck 1914, p 150). After an Ait Yusi bride had been hennaed, she was draped with a veil painted with a broad circle of henna, called ayyur, "moon" (Westermarck, 1914: 152) (Tazi, Viola; 1999:28 – 30). The hennaed veil covered her hair and face before she was presented to the groom.

The "Great Night of the Henna" was usually celebrated in the bride’s home the night after groom came to claim her. The groom, at his own home, was bathed, shaved, adorned with henna and celebrated. An Ait Sadden bride was clothed in her bridal attire and seated on a mat to be hennaed. Women sang, "Go out, may you give birth to male twins" and trilled zgrit during the henna application before she was presented to the guests and the husband.


Fonte aqui

Fonte das imagens:

http://www.weddingpicturesweddingphotos.net/wedding_picture_photo_henna_mehndi_tattoo.htm

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGS/Shared/StaticFiles/Photography/Images/POD/h/henna-hand-518587-sw.jpg

* os vossos comentários são muito bem-vindos! *