Sworn Virgins

These photos, taken in remote villages in rural Albania, appear to be portraits of elderly and middle-aged men. But the subjects are in fact women, women known as ‘sworn virgins’, females who have chosen - in the absence of any suitable male heir within their family - to renounce their femininity, cut off their hair and live in celibacy as ‘honorary’ men for the rest of their lives. 

The rigid patriarchy of remote Albania refuses to allow a woman to take over the family estate once all men have died so when only women remain within a family, one will decide to become a ‘man’, swearing to remain an unmarried virgin forever and become the new head of the family. Or else, as is the case when girls are very young, her parents will decide for her.

The sworn-in girl will be brought up and dressed as a boy, forced to act as a male and to socialise with other boys and men, shall organise the farmland and the work done on it, and even be permitted to carry a weapon. The ‘sworn virgin’ will never be allowed to revert back to being a woman. It is thought that breaking the vow was once punishable by death.

The ancient custom, which is now dying out, has lasted for some 200 years. It remained a strong tradition in Albania until the fall of communism in 1991, but sworn virgins are now a rarity. The practice was born from traditional, northern Albanian law, which believed that women belonged to their fathers until marriage, and then became the property of their husbands. Becoming a ‘sworn virgin’ did allow women to escape from unwanted arranged marriages. The custom not only gave women independence, ‘but also a right to head a family, and retain property which otherwise would be taken over by the closest male relative’. Most ‘sworn virgins’ confess to feeling proud of their fate, and say they gained status they would not otherwise have had in such a patriarchal society.

[Image One]

(Source: Daily Mail)

Colonialism and postcolonialism fascinate me. I studied it quite a bit at Uni and it was the main theme of my dissertation, where I came across the concept of ‘the mimic’ in postcolonial society, that is, ‘one [who] copies the person in power (be it their actions, attitudes, clothes or whatever) because one hopes to have access to that same power oneself’ [Source].

With that in mind, I find it particularly interesting how the Herero tribe of Namibia have completely undermined this notion by adopting the dress of their 19th century German colonisers as an act of defiance and way of memorialising their ancestors who were massacred in the name of Empire.

Victorian dress was first introduced to the Herero people in the mid-19th century and they quickly began to accessorise it with vibrant colourisation and such features as the cow-horn headdresses worn by the women above. Then, in the 1904 war with their colonisers Herero men claimed the military uniforms of dead German soldiers and these outfits now constitute the Herero’s traditional dress. Anthropologist Dr Lutz Marten said: ‘Wearing the enemy’s uniform will diminish their power and transfer some of their strength to the new wearer. This is in part assimilation to European culture, and also in part appropriation, a coming-to-terms with, and overcoming of history and the colonial experience,’ he said.

Namibia has a particularly bloody colonial history, about which more can be read here, however, the fact that there were around 80,000 Herero people when the Germans arrived, and just 15,000 when they were finally defeated, demonstrates how close an entire culture came to being completely destroyed.

The False Face Society

The False Face Society is probably the best known of the medicinal societies among the Iroquois, especially for its dramatic wooden masks. The masks are used in healing rituals which invoke the spirit of an old hunch-backed man. Those cured by the society become members. Also, echoing the significance of dreams to the Iroquois, anyone who dreams that they should be a member of the society may join.

The False Face Society proper performs a ritual twice a year. The ceremony contains a telling of the False Face myth, an invocation to the spirits using tobacco, the main False Face ritual, and a doling out of mush at the end. During the main part of the ritual, the False Face members, wearing masks, go through houses in the community, driving away sickness, disease and evil spirits. Members use turtle shell rattles, shaking them and rubbing them along the floors and walls. If a sick person is found, a healing ritual may be performed using tobacco and singing. The tobacco is burned, and wood ashes are blown over the sick person.

The community then gathers at the longhouse where the False Faces enter and sit on the floor. The people bring tobacco which is collected as they arrive, and burned when the ceremony begins. The ceremony itself is meant to renew and restrengthen the power of the gathered masks, as well as the spirit of Hadu⁷i⁷ in general. The ritual continues with dancing. At the end of the ritual, corn mush is doled out to the assembled crowd, and everyone goes home.

The design of the masks is somewhat variable, but most share certain features. The eyes are deep-set and accented by metal; the noses are bent and crooked; they are painted red and black; most often they have pouches of tobacco tied onto the hair above their foreheads. Horse tail hair is used for the hair. 

When making a mask, a man walks through the woods until he is moved by Hadú⁷i⁷ to carve a mask from a tree. Hadú⁷i⁷ inspires the unique elements of the mask’s design and the resulting product represents the spirit himself, imbued with his powers. The masks are carved directly on the tree and only removed when completed. Masks are painted red if they were begun in the morning or black if they were begun in the afternoon. Red masks are thought to be more powerful. Because the masks are carved into trees that are alive, they are similarly considered to be living and breathing.

EDIT: Since I posted this last night a member of the Iroquois has been in contact with me asking me to stress some important facts about The False Face masks. Apparently such masks aren’t supposed to be seen be non-Iroquois (although we came to the conclusion that as the masks above are readily available for anyone to see on Google images they were alright on Tumblr). There’s a bit more about this on the False Face Society’s Wikipedia page (second paragraph down) and I highly recommend people go read it!

[Image Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 - 4]

Fingernails in Imperial China

In Imperial China it was customary for individuals of high social standing to grow their fingernails to excessive lengths. The impractical length of the fingernails demonstrated that they had no functional use for their hands i.e. manual work. Women of the Imperial court would often adorn their fingernails with protective, ornate guards. 

[Image Sources: 1: Li Ching-Yuen, who, incidentally, claims to have been at least 197 years of age when he died | 2: From the Mutter Museum collections, this gentleman boasts two 6 1/2 inch fingernails and one 5 inch fingernail | 3: Empress Dowager Cixi | 4: Details of the Empress’s fingernail guards.]

Clairvius Narcisse: Dead Man Walking

When I was at Uni this kind of thing was the focus of my dissertation and I find it absolutely fascinating:

In April, 1962,  [Clairvius Narcisse] checked himself into hospital in the town of Deschapelle in Haiti. [He] had been sick for some time, complaining of fever, body aches, and general malaise, but recently had begun coughing up blood. His condition deteriorated rapidly. Physicians noted that Narcisse suffered from digestive disorders, pulmonary edema, hypothermia, respiratory difficulties, and hypotension … his lips turned blue [and] he reported tingling sensations all over his body. Two days later his two attending physicians, one of whom was American and the other American-trained, pronounced Narcisse dead and he was buried the next day.

Eighteen years later, [his sister] was walking through the village marketplace when she was approached by someone claiming to be Clairvius Narcisse. The man identified himself by a boyhood nickname which which was known only to members of the immediate family, and he had a bizarre tale to tell…    

He said that as he was pronounced dead he felt as if his skin was on fire, with insects crawling beneath it. He heard his sister Angelina weeping and felt the sheet being pulled up over his face. Although he was unable to move or speak, he remained lucid and aware the entire time, even as his coffin was nailed shut and buried. He even had a scar which he claimed was sustained as one of the coffin nails was driven through his face. There he remained, for how long he did not know, until the coffin as opened by the bokor (sorcerer) and his henchmen. He was beaten into submission, bound, gagged, and spirited away to a sugar plantation that was to be his home for the next two years.    

On the plantation, Narcisse and other zombies labored from sunup to sunset, pausing for only one meal a day. He would later report that he passed his time there in a dream-like state, devoid of will or volition, with events unfolding before him as if in slow motion. They were given a paste made from datura which at certain doses has a hallucinogenic effect and can cause memory loss. When the boker was killed, and the regular doses of the hallucinogen stopped, the slaves were able to regain their senses and escape.    

Two scientists investigating Narcisse’s claims have concluded that Narcisse was initially poisoned by a dose of a chemical mixture containing tetrodotoxin (pufferfish venom) and bufotoxin (toad venom) to induce a coma which mimicked the appearance of death. The instigator of the poisoning was thought to be Narcisse’s brother, with whom he had quarrelled over land. Upon returning to his village after the death of his brother Narcisse was immediately recognised. When he told the story of how he was dug up from his grave and enslaved, the villagers were surprised, but accepted his story because they believed that his experience was a result of voodoo magic.    

[Sources: Much more detailed article here : Wikipedia]

Vinegar Valentines

Known as ‘Vinegar Valentines’ these mocking cards, which date from the 1840s to 1940s, were used to tell someone how you did not love them. Yes, that’s right! For almost as long as Valentine’s Day has been an insufferably sappy day celebrating romantic love, it’s also been a day for telling everyone else exactly how much you don’t love them—with an anonymous poem sent via post.

Annebella Pollen, a lecturer in art and design history at University of Brighton, first discovered Vinegar Valentines when she was researching a project on love and courtship … In the back of a stationer’s sample book from 1870, she discovered 44 cheap, single-sheet, insulting Victorian Valentines with a comic sketch and a few lines of verse.

According to Pollen: “often they were sent anonymously. They were to say “Your behavior is unacceptable.” For example, there are quite a few cards that mock men with babies on their laps as being henpecked—the kind of thing now we would think was a man doing the right thing by taking his share of child care. But these cards were specifically designed to make the man seem emasculated and disempowered by being left holding the baby. Or there’d be images of women holding rolling pins, threatening their husbands.

The people sending such cards were usually not either one of the couple. It wasn’t the wife sending to the husband or the husband sending to the wife. It was somebody outside, looking in at their relationship and saying, “This doesn’t conform with what’s expected.” In that way, they did enforce social norms. Sometimes they seemed to be saying, “Change your behavior, or else.” There’s almost this threatening element to them.”

You can see loads more of these, and read a full interview with Pollen, here. See also, last year’s Valentine’s Day oddment.