Henna Mehndi body art: stain on skin
“ I didn’t know white people did henna!” (Indian-American girl observing Catherine Cartwright-Jones apply bridal henna to her older sister: Mansfield, Ohio, 2005)
2
During the last twenty years, henna body art has emerged from South Asia, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa into the popular culture of the USA, Canada, Europe and the UK (Maira, 2000). The western world has little understanding of henna, its techniques, traditions or history, and no legal or commercial framework for definition or regulation of henna. There have been scattered mentions of henna in anthropological, botanical, medical, historical, economic and legal literatures, but there has never been an integrated multidisciplinary study of what henna is. There is no resource on henna that includes where it was used, when it was used, how it was used, why it was used, who used it, nor have these elements been linked. The lack of a coordinated source of information about henna hampers not only academic for discussion about henna’s history and traditions, but stands in the way of ordinary people’s understanding and enjoyment of henna.
In this first chapter, I will demonstrate the need for a scholarly investigation of henna, particularly the historic regions of henna body art. Chapter two will define the criteria for investigating henna. Chapter three will test the usefulness of the proposed criteria. Chapter four will show how historical regions of henna can be mapped based on these investigations. Chapter five will propose the potential use of mapping the geographies of henna.
Share This :
0 comments:
Post a Comment