Morocco’s Original Henna Design?
Our delving into vintage photographs has returned riches about the early Moroccan henna designs.
The history of henna designs in Morocco is one that has been partially lost to time. While there are many gaps in the timeline, there are some records we can look at that give us an idea of how designs have morphed and changed over time.
So what were the oldest henna designs in Morocco like? Most probably, they were some variation of solid shapes or smears. We assume this to be the case in all areas where henna was used — without fail, what are now considered “old style” designs are simple, large, solid shapes.
Eventually, though, people did begin making more elaborate choices with their designs. There is one such early design that pops up with great frequency in photographs taken in the first half of the 20th century. It consists of stripes going across the knuckles, with the fingers or fingertips filled solidly.
The design is so common that it appears in photos from many different regions of Morocco. Sometimes it is shown with 2 stripes, sometimes 3, and the fingers may be filled solidly all the way to meet the hand, or with about an inch of open space.
The six examples above show this design in situ, from Amazigh groups of Ida Ou Nadif, Tissint, Ahel Massa, Zaiyan, Ida Ou Blal, and on a woman of Saharaoui Arab origin.
While we don’t know anything else about this design other than that it was commonly used by different groups in Morocco, its frequency suggests that it was a common precursor to more elaborate modern designs.
In photographs such as these, it is important to be able to differentiate between henna and tattooed patterns. In one photo shown above, tattoos are even visible on the back surface of the woman’s hand and wrist. The main reason we know that all these striped designs are henna and not tattoos is because of the mechanics of tattooing these areas of the hand. Even with modern-day techniques and equipment of tattooing, achieving a solid and even color in a large area of the fingers and hand is nearly impossible. The nature of the highly keratinized skin surface in these areas also prevents any such tattoo from healing solidly and evenly. Using traditional techniques of Maghrebi tattooing, which usually involved hand pricking the designs with a cactus spine or sewing needle, such an effect of solid color on the digits and between the fingers of the hand would be impossible. When we can compare the look of henna stains and tattoos in photos that depict both, we can also see clear differences in tone and line quality between the two.
A note on the photos: It is important to remember that photos like this would most probably have been taken by European photographers during the era of French and Spanish colonization of Morocco, which ended in 1957. As such, they may not give a fully accurate representation of Moroccan life and customs. The photos in this group show clothed women mostly in realistic settings, as opposed to the problematic and mostly fabricated “scenes et types” photographs also taken by French photographers of coerced and orientalized subjects. Some of the photos here may even have been taken by Moroccan photographers, especially in the case of those portraying wealthy people posed at home — at the advent of photography, a portrait of oneself, elegantly attired and in an opulent setting, was an object of prestige in many communities, and wealthy people routinely commissioned and posed for such portraits.