What Does Henna Ritual Mean

Practiced in Yemen, a country located in Western Asia, is a marriage ritual known as “Henna Ritual”. To Yemen women and their families, this ritual is a preparation for the changing to her new life of a man’s bride. Like any other special occasion, this ritual takes a lot of planning and holds great meaning to the bride, her groom, and their families.
Henna comes from the flowering plant called Lawsonia inermis. In many countries, henna serves as part of their traditions and as part of their cultures. It is used in many ways, but is most commonly used to dye skin by decorating the body in body art or create pseudos’, also known as henna tattoos. Henna consists of a red color and in Yemen is it believed to resemble beauty whereas the plants

They guide the bride from her dressing room door to the place that she will be sitting for the ceremony. Singers and percussion instruments are the sound of music while the bride walks. The singers sing around the bride throughout the entire ritual along with her female family members. They carried candles, each carrying different colors. These candles represented the light for the brides’ upcoming life. They also decorated eggs with shapes on them representing the fertility that the bride had and the life cycle and luck of protection against evil spirts that might do her and her future family harm. Music plays a major role within the henna ritual. There are two types of music that are played: songs of events and songs for dancing. Women sing from within their hearts, producing the most beautiful sounds. Many songs that are played and sang during these rituals have been passed down from many generations. The songs focus on the bride during the henna ritual. They talk about the brides’ beauty and elegance, her contributions to others and especially those to those within her

The spreading of the henna is extremely important, spreading it on the brides’ soles of her feet and the palms of her hands. They carried the belief that if the henna was spread in these two areas, that any evil would not harm her wherever she traveled, nor hurt the works of her hands. The people of San’a would hire an artist who was believed to be an expert to perform the spreading. This is normally held on a Monday. On Tuesday, the henna artist prepares a mixture then melts that mixture over a fire. The artist, a female, would then use an object to decorate the places of the brides’ body with the mixture, which was made into a hot wax that were covered with the henna. The artist starts at the brides’ hands, going as far as her wrists. Then, the artist does the brides’ feet, going as far as her ankles. Designs that the artist draw include lines, dots, circles, and drawings of grains (only on the hands). Based on the embroidery that the women use and the patterns that are used in that embroidery had to be of specific order due to the embroidery patterns and the design patterns. The patterns that are most commonly used were drawings of grain, dots (usually in groups of three) and triangles. The colors consisted of red, black, and brown. Some believed that the bride should have five dots on her hands, representing a force against evil. Others believed that the amount of dots drawn on the brides’ hand represented the number of