Henna’s sensual charm

By Patrick Beja

Henna is mainly a culture of the Coastal communities. Girls up to the age of nine are decorated with simple patterns on the hands but not the legs.

Those beyond this age have to wait until their marriage. Forty days after giving birth, women can be decorated with henna as they rejoin their husbands for ‘honeymoon’, experts say.

US student Patience Ray shows off her painted patterns. Photos: Maarufu Mohamed/Standard

Painting intricate patterns requires skill and endurance as it takes between six to eight hours to create good decorations.

Hayaty says painters earn between Sh4,000 and Sh10,000 although other artists charge less.

Henna patterns come in brown and black depending on the client’s taste.

On the East Coast, the art is considered sacred and comes handy during traditional or religious occasions like Maulid.

In Malindi, heena is sourced from the ancient settlement of Mambrui although much of it is imported from Yemen. In Zanzibar, women are reported to have taken the henna art a notch higher by also decorating canvas in addition to bodies.

Symbol of beauty

The dried leaves of heena plant are pounded, filtered, blended then mixed with water to form a paste, which is then used to decorate feet soles, palms, ankles and fingernails.

Apart from being revered as a symbol of beauty and joy, henna is also believed to contain medicinal properties.

Experts and lovers say henna has the ability to cool down the human body and refresh the soul as well.

Henna’s botanical name is Lawsonia Inermis. It is believed to have helped the desert residents of Rajasthan, Punjab, and Gujarat to cool their bodies.

Reports indicate the people would dip their hands and feet in a mud or paste made of crushed henna leaves and their body temperatures would lower when the mud was scraped off, as long as the henna colour remained visible.