The Amazigh tattoo between culture, significance, and suggestion

The Amazigh tattoo between culture, significance, and suggestion ... stories on bodies that tell a period of history

The Imazigh tattoo is considered a ritual ritual and is linked to their cultural system, beliefs and religions that they have embraced throughout history, where they used tattoos to express their belonging and identity, as they were associated with the meanings of femininity and fertility.

The Amazigh woman has been alone since ages, with tattoos that adorn different areas of her body, including the head and forehead, and between the eyebrows, cheek, chin, face, good, shoulder, arm, hand, chest, abdomen, back, thigh, knee, foot, and legs.

Women specializing in tattoos use many tools such as sharp needles, flesh, earthen ash, black charcoal, and many aromatic herbs, and the latter must be subject to rituals for one of the shrines, where she sleeps for an entire night under the supervision of a priest or Jewish priestess or one of the Specialists in tattoos in order to receive the "pool of tattoos", while others are inspired by the method of tattoos by professional women who carry the torch after them.

 The tattoos fill the girl's body with symbols of different connotations, such as a plus sign (+) that is written on the cheek, which means the letter T in the Amazigh letters, which is the first letter of the word "Tamtout", which means a female in the Amazigh and appointed God as they thought before.

The two breasts are tattooed to indicate fertility, sexual maturity, and the young woman's willingness to marry. A braided line is drawn on the chin and given divided into four corners between the eyebrows, a crescent and sun are placed on the cheek as well, and we find a tattooed square in the neck that indicates the home and stability in addition to placing a point next to the nose To protect against dental diseases, and next to the eye to prevent all diseases affecting the eye.

Berber women were not unique only to tattoos, but men also wore tattoos at the level of chin and hands for different purposes and to indicate strength and fertility and to nullify magic and drive away evil spirits, as well as spare them misery and poverty.

Fadwa tells about her Berber mother, Zahra, the daughter of the High Atlas Mountains, who used to put on her body tattoos, which are symbols that bear different connotations, such as the six-pointed star that was mediating her forehead, which indicates strength, femininity, and tattoo at the neck level, which was considered a sign of beauty for the Berber woman.

Fadwa adds that her mother was forced to put tattoos on her body by her mother, too, to mark her reaching puberty and to announce her willingness to marry like the rest of her daughters' daughters, especially since tattoos were considered a recognized norm and could not be opposed.

Fadwa says that "Attar is a Jew" who used to tattoo the daughters of "Al-Dawar", who took the craft from his father, as he was proficient in drawing tattoos and Berber symbols of different and deep connotations.

As for “Fadhima”, you tell the source a media about the story of the tattooed body that adorns the skinny body from which time has passed and says: “I was very happy when I learned that my mother would take me to the woman who was wearing the tattoo, despite the pain that I felt at the time due to the needle prick, I was excited to see the last result that My femininity will be complete. "

"I became more beautiful with that tattoo, which increased my charm and splendor among the girls of the tribe," she added, recalling the memories of her youth with a wide smile, after I put tattoos on my chin, between the eyebrows, on the level of my neck, and the wrists, something that was a pride for all free Berbers.

 In a statement to the source, the media and human rights activist and researcher in the Amazigh heritage Hamu Ishaq revealed that tattooing on the body of the Amazigh woman is an ancient story that presented history and has very complex connotations and codes, some of which were deciphered and understood by interested and researchers according to the accounts of grandmothers and the elderly of the Amazigh community.

 And the researcher in the Amazigh heritage says that some symbols have remained obscure in their meanings and significance, as they are symbols and letters that tell the story of the beginnings of the birth of "Tifinagh", whose age was estimated by archaeologists 20,000 years ago.

And the same speaker reveals that the Amazigh tattoo on the body of the Amazigh woman is a national archive, the identity of the land and the culture of the nation and its language from the dawn of history to the present day, not to mention what the Amazigh tattoo carries on the Amazigh woman of beauty and attractiveness

Writer Fatima Zahraa sailor.