Berber Tattooing: in Morocco's Middle Atlas

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Historically, women in the Berber culture or Amazigh were tattooed facially in a time that predates the arrival of Islam in North Africa. Now with the influx of Islam, many believe that any alteration to the creation of Allah is haram or forbidden. In Arabic culture it is referred to as C’est Haram, which translates to mean, ‘it is forbidden.’ My friend was blown away when he saw his grandmother and aunties reflected in the images and sketches of Berber women’s leg tattoos. That warmed my heart and made it the kind of gift that keeps on giving. Some tribes used tattoos to intimidate their enemies; The hostility of a tribe or the clan spirit retained their purity in these distinctive tattoos.

Many tattoo designs were of a style and placement on the body so as to offer protection from the evil eye. Indeed the name for Berber tattoos is ‘Jedwel’ meaning Talisman. Traces of this tradition can be found since antiquity in Maghreb, which lasted until the 1950s, before the custom disappeared in favor of a more modern and globalized style. This is the reason why today, only the elderly women are adorned with these drawings on their skin, the last witnesses of this ancestral practice.

The first of the facial tattoos is called ‘siyala’ and is on the chin. Siyala often takes the form of a symbolic palm tree tattoo which consists of a simple straight line from the bottom of the lip to the bottom of the chin. This line would sometimes be flanked by dots representing seeds. This book of previously unpublished work, collected nearly thirty years ago is a tribute, to the art of tattoo, to tradition, to family and to love. Albeit sharing similar culture, Amazighs are part of many regional sub-tribes that spread in different parts of North Africa, that include:

Women see the frog’s song as pure because this animal is deemed sacred as it lives in the rare waters of the desert. Tattoos or ticheret in Tifinagh, the traditional Berber language, is not a recent practice despite its popularity among new generations. Indeed, tattoo has always been linked to practices, beliefs and ideologies by a large number of people on all continents. A generation of women in the Aures Mountains of Algeria are marked by tattoos on their faces...the tattoos have survived because the women themselves have survived, with their faces to tell their tales. Another reason why Amazigh women would tattoo themselves was prophylactic. Indeed, these tattoos served to ward off the evil eye for many. Women used them for therapeutic purposes to cure both psychological and physical ailments. Berber tattoos represent a cherished form of traditional body art in Morocco. Primarily located on the face, they can also be found on women’s hands and ankles. The tattoos are crafted by applying a paste to the skin and delicately tapping it with a needle to form the design.For the women who wear this symbol, it represents the bird itself, a symbol of beauty, agility … and to represent this symbol on oneself, is to attract what it symbolizes.” At that time, tattoo centres were considered like beauty salons -- a place where women used to go to look pretty. Many women today choose to mark themselves with henna instead, a natural dye that fades away over the course of a week or two. Bedouin