Re: palms or backs of hands
Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on October 05, 1999 at 14:31:17:
In Reply to: Re: palms or backs of hands posted by hennaed on October 05, 1999 at 07:24:50:
The depilatories used to remove hair from Muslim ladies were pretty
vile in the previous centuries, and they had to be perfectly furless
according to religious law. Henna was used to relieve the inevitable
rash, and sometimes decoratively, too. I haven't found more than a
few references to these hennaes....only enough to be certain that they
were done. There are few paintings of nude women from the Islamic
world .. so the references are mostly travellers reports (who saw
prostitutes or who wrote what the eunuchs told them about women). The
mention from 15th century Turkey was that women had pubic henna "up to
4 finger's length above the vulva". I've always wondered who's
fingers were measuring, and what excuse he used for his hand
being there. Since the last century, there have been a few
photographs of nudes and semi-nudes (prostitutes again) that show a
fondness for branches of foliage and flowers in henna on their bodies
(Algeria) and a few bits and pieces from Persia that report the same
(flowering branches). Presently in UAE and Egypt, full-body henna
often has flowering, branching henna patterns.