Berber Tattooing: in Morocco's Middle Atlas

Product Information

Author Loretta Leu sat down to answer some questions about the new release and talkto Tattoo Life about her incredible journey with Felix… Today, it’s rare to see a woman sporting deq face tattoos, as many in younger generations view it as old-fashioned. These temporary adornments are often limited to the hands and the feet, as such the art of facial tattooing is a vanishing art. While traditions vary among tribes, in some communities, a Bedouin girl's tattoos are chosen by her mother and are selected on the basis of a trait the parent would like to see in their child. For example, a dot on the nose means the hope of a long life for the child.

Berber tattoos complete this elegant and well-groomed look: these geometric signs in the shape of an arrow, a point, or a triangle, cover their faces, hands and ankles, the only uncovered parts of their bodies. Today, there are lots of misconceptions regarding the people of North Africa. Amazighs are often mistaken for Arabs or associated with people of the Middle East by Westerners.

Women see the frog’s song as pure because this animal is deemed sacred as it lives in the rare waters of the desert.

A number of motifs were common amongst Amazigh women’s tattoos, including symbols of the sun, an eye of a partridge, a chain and flies. In Berber culture, the partridge was associated with grace and beauty, and its eyes symbolise the omnipresence of danger.

' + ad.title + '

At that moment, despite her refusal I decided to do it, I went to a woman tattooer, I did it so that I would be beautiful, but unfortunately my mother and my grandmother did not accept this gesture." Today, facial tattooing is a custom practiced by the Amazigh tribes of Algeria, Kurdish communities in Mesopotamia and the Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula.

Berber Tattooing is a unique and tender record of the tribal skin art of Morocco’s Middle Atlas. The result of a series of chance encounters, Felix & Loretta’s Leu’s road trip in 1988, opened a doorway into the intimate world of the women of the Berber tribes. In this book, the women tell their individual stories, revealing the traditions of the tattoo in their culture, together with insights into the lives that they led. This operation was very painful, then I waited for a week until there was a crust on my face, then I removed it, at this time we can see the final result of the tattoo."

They view these tattoos as a relevant rite of passage which are added at key stages in their lives. The ‘siyala’ is drawn on the chin. It symbolises the palm tree.