Source: The Casbahpost.com published on February 19, 2017 translated by Chrysalide
Traditional tattooing in Algeria is an endangered pre-Islamic practice that can be found in particular among women from the generations before the country’s independence.
The tattoo is an aesthetic and symbolic design made on the skin by depositing ink between the dermis and the epidermis. We meet this tradition from North Africa to Oceania via the Middle East. The term comes from the Tahitian tatau meaning to draw or mark the skin. In Algeria, its traditional practice is called lewcham or el-ayacha meaning the one who gives life, because of the therapeutic or protective function conferred on it.
Traditional tattooing in Algeria is an endangered pre-Islamic practice that can be found in particular among women from the generations before the country’s independence.
Photo: Yasmin Bendaas, for the Pulitzer Center
Although there is much work documenting the practice in its Japanese, New Zealand (Maori) and even Moroccan and Tunisian forms, traditional tattooing in Algeria has only been the subject of a limited amount of research. This absence has led to the development of many myths about its origin. Some limit tattoos to the simple expression of tribal affiliation, still others link the origin of the practice to the desire of women to become ugly in order to protect themselves from French soldiers during colonization.
According to anthropologist Yasmin Bendaas, this latter myth is not without merit since during colonization some women did adopt tattoos for political purposes. These were said to have been marked with local symbols of resistance and protection, such as the burnous and the rikab used by the cavalry.
Photo: Bruno Hadjih – Portrait of a Chaoui woman
The researcher, who was interested in the traditional tattoos of Chaoui women in the Aurès region, points out that the lack of knowledge about the meaning of traditional tattoos indicates that the tradition was already endangered long before current generations. did not get tattoos during the 1930s and 1940s. In addition, the symbols were often chosen by the tattoo artist rather than the tattooed person, making the search for their meaning and origin all the more difficult to be determined.
Indeed, many women in the region have been tattooed by those called “adasiyat”, women belonging to nomadic populations originating from the Algerian Sahara, Orania or Tunisia. For Yasmin Bendaas, the adasiyat exchanged their tattooing services for various commodities or products. The practice of traditional tattooing is said to have disappeared with the end of this form of commerce, in conjunction with literacy training and the spread of religious practices prohibiting body modifications.
In the description of the nomads, the interviewees note that the adasiya spoke Arabic, which would explain why the names of the tattoos are in Arabic and not in Chaoui. Masouda’s husband remembers that the adasiya was a woman who traveled by horse with her hair plaited on either side. She knocked door to door and often accepted flour, eggs and shoes instead of money for her services.
Yasmin Bendaas
Photo: Femme des Ouled Naïl – 1905 – Lehnert Landrock
The tattoo has multiple functions. It is first and foremost aesthetic in a context where tattoos were markers of beauty and femininity. The tattoo thus features several symbols. Each symbol, from the moon to the eye of the partridge (ain el hajla), is placed in a particular place and has its own meaning. The partridge, for example, is represented with a diamond due to a white diamond present on the head and throat of the animal. The partridge in Algeria is a bird that is often associated with beauty and grace. Tattoos placed on the breasts or above the ankles make use of designs representing fertility, while those placed on the arms tend to feature scorpions or gazelles.
Photo: Symbols of the Ouadhias tribe – Mr. (white father) Devulder
The function of the tattoo is also therapeutic, so it aims to promote fertility or protect against bad luck (magical power) and cure diseases in the absence of doctors. When used as a healing tool, tattoos were also used by some men.
Finally, according to linguist Lucienne Brousse, tattoos are also a marker of social status and clan membership. In her work Beauty and Feminine Identity: Lewcham, she embarked on an exercise in reconstructing and interpreting the drawings made by Eliane Ocre, a nurse in Algeria and who had collected hundreds of traditional tattoo symbols.
The Palm
The surveys representing the palm, coming from the region of Touggourt, south-east of Algiers, are particularly rich drawings which, with some exceptions, are not figurative. The palm, like the palm tree, has for some women the (unspoken) status of “mother goddess”, source of wealth and protective figure like the protective shadow of the palm tree.
Lucienne Brousse
Photo: Algerian carpets – Ministry of Regional Planning, Tourism and Handicrafts
If the traditional tattoo disappears over the changes in society, the symbols have however been transmitted from generation to generation. Indeed, through cave paintings or crafts including weaving, pottery, embroidery, painting or engraving, they occupy a unique place in the arts and constitute a fundamental element of Algerian heritage.
Photo: Oil lamp, Kabylie, 1868 – Collection of V&A.
Photo: Tuareg pendant from Hoggar – Blood on the Leaves
