FADING CUSTOMS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 399, 7 December 1932, Page 2

FADING CUSTOMS

SIGNIFIC AN CE .OF TATTOOINGIN ANCIENT EGYPT. . MANY DIFFERENT PATTERNS. A woman anthropologist who has spent the best part of 12 years alone — except for two native servants— in thrrhuts of Egyrptian villages, making friends with peasantry and studying their beliefs;, medicines, and magics, in p'articular collecting data about tattao patterns, ' -is Miss Winifred Blackman, one reputed to know more of the lore and superstitions of Egyptian peasantry than any other woman in England. For the last four years Miss Blackman worked on behalf of Dr. Wellcome's Historical Medical Museum, Wigmore Street, London, and discovered that many of the peasantry's beliefs and customs were almost identioa.1 with those connected with the local gods in ancient times. Her purpose was to record them before they became obliterated by time and civilisation. Recently she returned to England from an eight-months vi'sit t'o the 'Cairo district, where her wbrk had been chiefly connected with the tattoo patterns of the peasantry, and she took back neiarly 150 different designs. "The peasantry, are tattooed not so much for the decorative as for the curative purposes," she stated, "and every illness has its own special design, many -of which date back to anrcient times. In the process of being tattooed the blood must be drawn away from any affected spot and cause a temporary relief; and I expect it was for this reason that they set such store by it as a cure for their ills. "Owing to civilisation -they are beginning to -outgrow their faith in it as a cure, and many of the younger i' generation are not tattooed at all, j though on the bodies of their fathers ! and mothers there may not be a [j square inch of flesh that is not coveri ed with desiems.

"These designs afford evidence of a remarkable continuity of thought and custom from the ancient Egypt to the new; as, for instance, the repre--sentation of a fish, first employed as far back as the 12th dynasty, or the very early Persian design of a lion with a sword." Miss Blackman told of the women from whom she obtained many curious magico-medical objects and primitive medicines which are still largely used. These women trek enormous distances, coming from Syria. Abyssinia., the Sudan,, Upper and Lower Egypt, and Morocco, selling charms and magic as they go. After month-s of constant mixing with these people, Miss Blackman has won their confidence, thereby gaining knowledge of their customs and lifting a little higher the veil of mystery and romance that enshrouds ancient Egypt.