I saw your palestinian pride month art and I wanted to ask about the tattooes the women are wearing, can you explain more about palestinian tattooing? Iāve never seen it before
Oh, thank you so much for asking!
The tattoos are definitely not exclusive to Palestine, they're practiced throughout South West Asia and Northern Africa - though in South West Asia we call them Deq, I'll focus on South West Asia specifically bc while I am also Northern African I know more about Deq. Facial and Body tattooing was a common practice for many South West Asian women (and men on occasion, though usually the arms not face were tattooed for them). Fala7i (fellahin), Bedu (Bedouin), Kurdish, Assyrian and Yazidi communities have practiced it for hundreds of years. I can't verify with a source but I've heard some say it originates from ancient Mesopotamia.
(left to right: Bedouin Lebanese woman, Fellahin Jordanian woman, a Kurdish woman)
A lot of the meanings behind deq have been lost but chin tattoos - specifically a line from lip to chin - were meant to symbolize fertility and beauty, Muslim and Christian women would often adorn themselves with a Crescent or Cross-shaped tattoo - sometimes after or during a pilgrimage, some tattoos were meant for protection from the evil eye, during battles, or spirits and a lot demonstrated tribal affiliation. In Egypt, Palestine, and Sudan I've noticed also lower lip tattooing.
A lot of the documentation of the tattooing readily available is from Europeans and in between pages illustrating the tattoos there are comments calling it "distasteful" "unattractive" "barbaric", which sucks.Ā
(Yezidi womanās tattoos in the 1930s)Ā
For Palestine in particular, I've done some studies in the past on tattooing amongst Palestinians, though a lot of info is hard to find due to displacement, ethnic cleansing, religious fundamentalism, and sustained repression of Palestinian culture by Isra3l. The practice is hardly seen anymore and those who still wear the tattoos are older women, my Great Grandmother in particular had dots on her forehead and lines down her chin, Bedouin and Fellahin women throughout Palestine practiced it. According to a few sources, the tattoos were done by a Dom artisan and were made out of ink, smoke residue, and sometimes breastmilk and punctured into the skin with a needle.Ā
Some of my studies:Ā
