The Body Piercing

Nowadays, the body piercing is a very common practice all over the world. It appears in france in 1993, but this art is spread all around the world since many centuries in many tribes. The body piercing has always featured the belonging to a group, such as tribes originally or more commonly in our modern society, fashion groups such as : gothics, emo…
First of all, we will introduce the history of the body piercing. Then we will talk about its role in occidental countries nowadays.

The localisation of the body piercing determine in each tribes a different signification, so that each piercing has its own history. As a result, we decided to present the history of the body piercing thematically, according to its localisation.

- Ear piercing : In Ancient times, this body piercing would have permitted to distinguish rich people from poor ones. Actually, Romans people used to wear it as a sign of wealth. An other example is that the “marins”, well known for their superstitions, used to wear it, believing that it would improve their view.
This body piercing is also very presents in a lot of tribes, and very often, the diameter of the hole determines their social “class”.

-Tang piercing : The Aztecs and Mayas tribes, more particularly the shamans, used to wear it, in order to communicate with dead spirits and their Gods.

- nose piercing : this kind of piercing takes its origins in two different parts of the world : in “moyen orient”and Papouasy.
In moyen orient, it appeared since 4 000 years. Then, this practice had been diffused in India, where the noble casts wore it, and so permitted to distinguish nobles from others.
In Papouasy, they used to wear it differently, in the “ nasal cloison”and was made, not by jewels but by bones or pieces of wood.

-navel piercing : In Egypt, only the Pharaon and his family were allowed to wear this kind of piercing. Every other persons would be executed if they have done it.

-lips piercing : in America and Ethipia, women used to pierce their lower lip, and increased the size of the hole in order to put others materials in it.


In our society piercing really appeared in the 70’s with the punk movement especially thanks to music bands such as Sex Pistols, and it began to symbolize the rebellion toward the system; at this time the body piercing was considered as a provocation, and was not accepted by the society.
Nowadays, some people still have deep rooted prejudiced, but generally speaking, the body piercing, is now well accepted in society because most of people wear it as a jewel. There is a large variety of piercing styles and cheaper than in the past, so that most and most people wear it everyday, without especially wondering to which group they belong.

The body piercing that used to be considered as a custom that showed a belonging to a group is now principally an esthetical token and this changement is probably due to the mass effect provocated by our society of consume, where everyone can now buy everythings.

Maasai, a tribe preserved from the modern world, but living in concord with it.

If the Maasai people, on the contrary to Mentawai et Karen women ( articles posted previously), do not have any problems because of their appearance, it seems very interesting for us to talk about them in the way their appearances points out their belonging to the group, which will best describe our initial problematical. The Maasai are not the only group to adopt a special appearance thanks to physical modifications or clothes in Africa (and it seems obvious to say that they nearly all do it it, so that they can identify the others members of their tribe or other tribes more easily), but as I went to Tanzania and spent some time with Maasai people, I decided to post an article about them; and also because the Maasai ‘s appearance is well known from nearly everyone ( postcards, advertisings) but their culture and history not.

First of all, the Maasai tribe is an ethnic group that lives in east Africa, in Tanzania and Kenya. They are a semi-nomad people, most of them being stock-breeders. They speak Maa, but usually know the base or speak currently the official languages of Tanzania and Kenya: English and Swahili.

The Maasai population has been estimated as “approaching 900.000”, but those estimations have been several and never exact because of their semi-nomadic way of life.

I will introduce to you, briefly, the Maasai history. According to the oral traditions and archeological data, they migrated from the North, from the Nil Valley in Egypt, and from Soudan. During centuries, the Maasai had lost their territory. On the one hand, most of the Massai’s territory had been conquered by the English settlers in the end of XIX century (whic

h have reduced their territory by 60%), and on the other hand, more recently, in 1940, an important part of their territory had been transformed in National Park and wildlife reserves such as: Amboseli, Nairobi National Park, Maasai Mara, Samburu, Lake Nakuru, and Tsavo in Kenya; Manyara, Ngorongoro, Tarangire and Serengeti in Tanzania.

Maasai have, until now, well resisted the urging of the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle, and have demanded a grazing right in some of the national parks and they keep living in it with wild animals. As they keep having an aversion to eat game, they are not considered as a problem for the respect of wild anim

als’ life. That for that reason, that, nowadays, maasai people have got a quite peaceful way of life in Kenya and Tanzania, having with their government mutual agreements. So the Maasai had kept easily all of their traditions and rituals, except one of them: each young man was supposed to kill a lion before they were circumcised. But as the lion hunting has been banned in East Africa, they cannot kill them anymore. But if a lion is putting human lives in danger, they are allowed to kill them. In addition to that, Maasai receive compensation when a lion kills livestock, which is a better thing than killing the predator, which again best describes the mutual agreements with governments.

In a second part, we will try to explain to you the origin of their special appearance (clothes and body modifications), and describe them.

Maasai clothing varies by age, sex, and place. Young men, for instance, wear black for several months following their circumcision. However, red is a favored color for men and women ( as you can see on the picture posted ) . They also wear black and blue, striped with red and sometimes multicolored clothes. Since 1960, they do not use animal skin for their clothes, and replaces it with commercial cotton.

Their clothes are like sheets that they wrap around the body, one over each shoulder. The sheets, red and stripped are the traditionally ones and are called Shùka ( Maa word ).

Many Maasai wear simple sandals, which are made from cowhides. Men and women wear a lot of wooden bracelets and bead jeweller

y. They play an essential part in the ornamentation of their body. There are many meanings of the color of the beads, some general meanings for a few colors are: white, peace; blue, water; red, blood. This ornamentation articulates the Maasai identity and position in their villages.

Concerning their body modifications, Maasai still practice excision and circumcision. Most of boys having between 12 and 25 have to pass from “boyhood to the status of warrior”, which now consist in a circumcision ceremony. They do not use anesthetic, and as a result, this ceremony is very painfull. But the most difficult for those young men is that they can’t show their pain : expressions of pain are considered as dishonor. During 3 months, urination is nearly impossible and very painfull.

Young women also undergo excision during an elaborate rite of passage too. This ceremony makes them ready for marriage. In Kenya female circumcision is practiced by 38% of the population. The most common form of excision for Maasai is clitorectomy. This operation, also done without any anesthetic is very painful and dangerous.

Another very common practice of Maasai is the piercing and the stretching of earlobes. To stretch them, they use stones, elephant tusks and

other various materials. They also remove some of their canine tooth in early childhood because they strongly believe that this canine region will create diarrhea, vomiting and other febrile illnesses.( This belief and practice is not unique to the Maasai in Africa.)

Now, as you know everything about the Maasai, and not only the way they look on the postcards, you can easily understand that their special appearances are part of their identity, that they determine their social position in society, and so, that they are not created or preserved for tourists as it often occurs nowadays.

Dreadlocks

Nowadays, people generally have deep-rooted prejudices against other people wearing dreadlocks. They have become associated with ideas such as smoking ganja and a permanent feeling of relax. As a consequence, just a few persons know the real history of dreadlocks, and particularly what are their meanings?

First of all, we will define what a dreadlock is and introduce the real history of locked hair, and then we will try to explain the phenomenon of Rasta’s, which, sometimes, have bad connotations.

Which is called a dreadlock is a kind of tube made of hair, which had fused together. It can appear if the hair can grow naturally without any conditioners for a long time. But today, a lot of hair dressers are specialized in making dread locks artificially with special conditioners in few hours.

The origin of dreadlocks descends from the ancient Egypt. The royal family used to wear dreadlocked hair.

Then, for the Sâdhu and the Sadhvis, Indian men and women practicing asceticism, the dreadlocks had become sacred. Their hair trains a religious rite and expression of their negligence to the vanity and a demonstration of a spiritual experience where the physical appearances have no importance.

But meanings of dreadlocks are various all over the world, and are not always in relation with religious and spirituous things. In the countries of East Asia, such as China, dreadlocks and variations of locks were supposed to bring a good health, and were carried at the same time as nails of the hand very long.

The name dreadlocks comes from Jamaica; it carries a mystic and revolutionary meaning, which is related to the arrival of these braids in the island: dreadlocks means an anti-authority aspect in front of the system capitalist or westerner generally.

A person with dreadlocks is similar to the lion, and so, has the same qualities: pride and strength. It is a refusal of the mental and physical slavery.

Bob Marley, coming from Jamaica

Since the 70s, dreadlocks arrived in the west thanks to the influence of reggae music.

It is now an effect of fashion; it is to say that the religious and historical meaning has nearly disappeared. It is now, more a way for young people to translate their rebellion against the society, and more generally, a way to integrate teenagers groups. As the dreadlocks appears when, obviously, people don’t wash their hair for a moment, they were quickly assimilated to person lazy and rebel. An

d as a famous singer, Bob Marley, use to smoke a lot of ganja, it is also assimilated to smoking weeds and so on.

Today, the dreadlocks, that were a powerful meaning of appearance and

belonging to a way of thinking or a group, are now wore by Christian Dior models for his new collection, and help a lot of companies all over the world to make money…

The Mentawai

On the 13th of September 2008, the declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples had been carried by several states in the world, despite of the disapproval of Australia, New-Zealand and Canada. But nowadays, a lot of tribes are still forced to leave their small villages and to integrate towns or government villages near the coasts.

This is exactly what the Mentawai people are suffering from since the government of Indonesia initiated the “Mentawai relocation plan”. The terms of the bargain are the following ones : if they accept to leave their big family house called “ umas” in order to live in town in a proper way ( in a globalized way ) , they will access to free education, clothes, medical care and other promises.

Before going further to this actual problem, let us introduce you the Mentawai tribe, which certainly have the most interesting indigenous culture, and the most preserved despite of all the persecutions they are suffering from.

The Mentawai tribe is an indigeneous tribe of Siberut (Indonesia), a quite big island (4480 km2), off the Sumatra’s coast. Nowadays, the number of Mentwai is nearly 30 000.

The Mentawai people has a way of life very traditional : they hunt, with poison prepared by themselves with several natural ingredients ( leaves, pepper, roots.. ) ; the women also contribute by fishing with landing nets – and all these things are done with the respect of nature. When they kill an animal, they never forget to thank the animal soul in order to preserve the balance of the forest. This concept is part of the several shamanism concepts: men have to live in harmony with nature, because if not, the forest spirits will punish them.

a Mentawai women fishing

The Mentawai live in big and long traditional houses where all the family stay (they are approximately 25 in it). The house is elevated, in order to keeps to pigs under it. They are used to eat on the floor, so they have pierced a hole on it, so that the scraps of their meal fall down directly to the pigs.

But the particularity of the Mentawai from others tribes, -and which is the origin of all the persecutions they underwent for centuries-, is their physical appearance: all their bodies are covered with tattoos from the head to the feet (as you can see on the photos posted).

Actually, the Mentawai tribe is probably the first one in the world that has done tattoos. There are several explanations of this practice:
Some will say that it is a religious act in continuity with shamanism. In fact, they believe that everything have a soul, which is able to leave his material envelope. In consequence to that, their biggest fear is that their souls leave their bodies. That is for that reason that they tattoo their bodies, believing it will keep their soul protected, and so, they will be protected from death.
Another reason of these tattoos, which seems the more logical to occidental spirits, is that their tattoos permit them to recognize to which family the tribe’s members belong.
There is a third explanation, but less spread than the others that say that the tattoos are here to replace their clothes.

It seems logical that the tattoos’ sessions are numerous because of the size of them. It is the shaman of the family concerned that will tattoo the other members of the family, following his tattoos’ example. The ink is prepared with a kind of coal and cane sugar. The sessions are very long and hurting, but all the family assists to them, and so, they try to relax the man tattooed by telling him jokes and singing.

The other physical particularity of the Mentawai that disturbs a lot the others is that they file their teeth, so they can be pointed. And you must now think to yourself, why? Because they use to be cannibals. Now, they are not anymore because Indonesia government prohibited it, but they insist to keep this appearance, characteristic of the belonging to the tribe.

As we said before, the Mentawai have always been persecuted since the 50’s: some armed forces came into their villages and cut their hair, burnt their skins (considered as maleficent). And now, The Mentawai, also called “flower men” are now threatened to leave their forest and island for economics profits. In fact, there are a lot of forest’s exploitations that want to install in Siberut Island, which makes the Indonesia government very happy. But not only they will destroy the Mentawai tribe but also they will destroy the fauna and the flora.

The tribes with appearance very unusual have all been persecuted during ages, and now, with the globalization and all the standardization that it imposes, they are completely chased without any pangs of remorse of the governments. All these provisions made against these tribes are to much radical, and will lead to a world devoid of meaning and identity.