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Mehndi is a form of body painting that uses dyes made from Henna. In India and the Middle East, body painting is known as Mehndi. The question of how many hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors may have decorated their bodies with simple paints over countless generations of hunters and gatherers is lost to the ages.īody painting with natural pigments such as clay existed in most tribal communities such as the indigenous people of New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. By some, body painting is considered the most early form of art. The line between cybernetics and human physiology is growing ever slimmer, and the twentieth century provided a case study of how quickly a culture's taboos concerning the flesh can change.Īlthough it is impossible to know for certain, it seems likely that ancient peoples were painting their faces and bodies far before the first tattoos or piercings were innovated. Innovations like glow in the dark and UV reactive tattoos are two recent examples of where body art has incorporated modern science into the artistic medium itself. Subcultural identification: people use body art to show they belong to a certain subculture (conformism).Īs societies also tend to incorporate the existing forms of technology into their body art, one is left to wonder at how it will look centuries down the line.A rite of passage of the counter culture and mainstream world alike.An expression of spirituality or religion.A critique of the aesthetic values of the larger society.In modern society, body art is typically used as: Ear Stretching (aka gauging or tunneling).Piercing: piercings are a kind of body modification that were seen as a status symbol.Scarification: scarification is used in many different cultures as a rite of passage or as a means to show sorrow.Stretched lips are a symbol of social maturity. In the Mursi tribe, the size of the lip disc correspondents with the number of cattle paid as the bride price. The stretching is done with the aid of lip plates (aka lip plugs or lip discs). Lip stretching: several tribes are known for lip stretching, like the Mursi women of Ethiopia and the Botocudo women of Brazil.The neck is gradually elongated with neck rings. Neck stretching: a long neck is a beauty ideal in some African and Asian cultures.Some of the best-known examples of African body art include: Throughout Africa, examples of body art have been found in virtual every traditional society. Although one needs to go no further than the local shopping mall to find examples of tribal body art, it is often easier to observe cultural body modification by studying a culture outside of one's own. Magical protection: body art often served as a talisman.Īnthropologists have discovered that body art is one of the human universals that are found in every culture on the planet.Social status: usually, the bigger the body modifications, the higher on the social ladder someone was.Identification: tribe members and outsiders can identify each other by means of their body art.
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Body art rituals served as a rite of passage. The acceptance of such adornment was considered a part of reaching social maturity.Correct the human form into the given culture's concept of ideal physical beauty.Historically, permanent body art was used to: Body art is nearly always heavily influenced by the aesthetic and social taboos of the societies that encourage their use. When studying body art history, it is striking to notice how the different versions of both modern and tribal body art are reflections of the societies that their subjects lived within. Let's take a look at the anthropology of body art and survey the most popular expressions of this art form in today's world. Whether it is with the fine strokes of an artist's airbrush or the precision slices of an expert's scalpel, the world of human body art and body modification is virtually limitless in its manifestations. Although ink tattoos are the most popular modern form of body art, human beings have been adorning their bodies for aesthetic or ritualistic reasons in some manner or another for thousands of years.