In the ancient Indian kingdom of Kalinga, history was written on women's bodies: religious designs, love charms, tribal symbols soothed the gods and forge identity. This is a journey into the heart of the extraordinary ethnic diversity of rural to meet communities who try to preserve their land and customs in an India caught in uncompromising development. Texte : Laure Siegel / Photos : Tom Vater
In South Asia, tribes and some Hindu castes have been developing their own tattoo traditions for centuries - from the Kalash in Pakistan to the Newari in Nepal to the Nagas in India. The practice of gudna ('burning the needle' in Hindi) makes it possible to create eternal jewelry that resists all the misfortunes of life and has been particularly appropriated by India’s indigenous peoples. The Adivasi, literally the "original inhabitants", represent a quarter of the population of Orissa, a state of rolling hills and beaches in the east of India, stretching along the Bay of Bengal. Orissa is a region full of resources - minerals, forests, fertile land - but plagued by natural scourges - cyclones, floods, droughts - and serious economic problems - poverty, lack of education, large scale industrial exploitation and infrastructure.
Noyen, 35, lives on fishing and odd jobs on the shores of Lake Chilika. She had a small swastika tattooed on her hand when she was eight years old. It is a design that also adorns the pots containing sacred water during pūjās, ritual prayers conducted to honor the gods, during the sacred baths to the river in the morning to the birth of a child or the launching of a business. These marks are made to protect children from ghosts and evil spirits. First, one rubs the skin with an stinging leaf until the flesh is raw, then the tattoo is applied with a nail. For a few days, the skin is swollen and an infection spreads the lines under the skin. "When some girls had trouble coping with the pain and were too agitated, their legs and arms were tied to the bed," recalls Noyen.
In this region of southern Orissa, it’s mostly the women who get tattooed and usually the tattooists are also women, although men son sometimes engrave religious signs or their first names on their arms. Knowledge of the art of tattooing has always been transmitted from mother to daughter and female tattooists, sedentary or nomadic, were paid in handfuls of rice, chili, turmeric or later, in small coins.
It’s market day for Nibajina Pradhan, 50, who has come down from the hills to sell her agricultural products. When she was ten years old, her parents took her to the tattooist. "I was scared but I had no choice, it was the rule in the village. No stepmother would have wanted me, if I had not had the face tattooed." Indeed, if the custom was not respected, future parents-in-law saw themselves entitled to insult the parents of any bride as poor, and to complain that the young woman had been brought to them as a man. The geometric facial tattoo are also seen as a way to frighten off man-eating tigers, who were lurking in the Indian countryside not so long ago. And among the lower castes, being tattooed was considered a necessity to escape the punishment of the land of darkness, because it is believed that the demons of Yama, the god of death, devour only those who are unmarked.
In Nibajina’s village, women get tattooed when they are between seven and twelve years old, the face first, sometimes followed by the arms and legs. Three to four girls are tattooed per day during one-hour sessions, mainly in winter, the climate being more conducive to healing than during the monsoon. "I was tattooed with six needles tied together, soaked in a mixture of soot and banana sap." explains Nibajina Pradhan. Other mixtures contain betel juice or breast milk.
The journey continues to the village of Siliki, populated by Desia Kondh, one of the three major subcategories that make up the Kondh ethnic group who live in Orissa. Eighteen families live in Siliki, and they have all welcomed the Virgin Mary in their homes. In Orissa, Protestantism is spreading amongst the indigenous peoples. Today is Sunday and it’s time for the mass.
The devotees have brought their school notebooks, covered in newspaper to protect the cover, which contain the main prayers written in Kuvi, the language of the Kondh. "Johari, Johari!" The parishioners intone this word in chorus, a term used by all the indigenous tribes of Orissa and the neighboring state of Chhattisgarh to greet and express thanks. Tour guides who visit their villages are keen to present them as joyful people who like to dance and sing. But the Adivasi have less and less faith and energy to celebrate.
Marnali Maji, who is, as she says, more than 60 years old, has four daughters, all of them tattooed, and two sons. She remembers her childhood: "When we were kids, with my female friends, we pierced our ears and we tattooed small dots on our arms to get used to the pain and pass the time." The Kondh believe that the brutal experience of facial tattooing prepares girls for maternity while giving them the strength and courage to face the challenges of life.
"We would love to continue this tradition and have a lot of interest in our history of tattooing but officials are patrolling the villages telling us what to do and not to do ..." sighs Marnali Maji. This condescending pressure from political and religious authorities coupled with the disappearance of the last village tattooists explains why it has become rare to meet women with face tattoos younger then 30. The government banned ancestral tattoos in the 1970s, but it was the desperate desire to blend into the mass of the great Indian nation, rather than respect of the law that put an end to the practice.
Political tensions between Hindu Indians and animist or Christian minorities are strong, aggravated by a Maoist insurrection that continues to destabilize the region. In July 2016, six people of the Kondh ethnic group were killed by the police. These women and children were returning from the market where they had gone to sell their products. On their way home, their tuk-tuk was machine-gunned by the military, who confused them with the Maoist fighters that are known as Naxalites, a regional guerilla movement using violent means to combat wide-spread discrimination and exploitation of India’s have-nots. The authorities often see indigenous people as accomplices of the Naxalites, as the fighters sometimes find refuge in the remote villages of ethnic minorities. A ghoulish photoraph of the face of one of the victims, tattooed and bloody, made the front pages of the local newspapers, a symbol of the suffering of the Adivasi and the extinction of their culture. "Our facial tattoos are our identity, they allow us to recognize ourselves among ourselves in the afterlife, once we enter the world of spirits, they are what we are, and if this peculiarity is taken away from us, we will become part of the majority and will be like all the others. " Marnali Maji says. Texte : Laure Siegel / Photos : Tom Vater
