Sacrifice for Status

The facial nerves are considered to be among the most sensitive receptors of the human body. Being treated with spiky thorns or needles can, therefore, excruciating pain.

Chin girls who endured the painful ritual of facial tattooing enjoy therefore higher social status in the hierarchy of their group because they have proven to be mentally and physically stronger.

“DURING THE TATTOO SESSION, I was wrapped in a bamboo mat and helpers held me down, so I couldn’t move”, recalled a Laytu woman (source: Parkitny, Jens Uwe, ‘Blood Faces’, Flame of the Forest, Singapore, 2007).

In general , finding a husband does not pose a problem for the tattooed women and girls as Chin men have always been attracted to the strongest females in their clan. At least this is what I have been told by Chin men.

Lest you think all the women have high pain thresholds, there are those among the Chin practising group who could not bear to go on with the ritual. I have seen women with only a single short line on their forehead - evidence of their incomplete attempt to go through the tattooing process because they could not longer tolerate the pain.

“Sometimes”, I was told, so called “helpers” had to hold the body of a girl down as she convoluted in agony. One of the eldest women in Chaung Nar village remembered “being wrapped in bamboo [mat] so I could not move during the tattoo session.” The session took hours.

All Chin women I met did not only remember the pain they had to go through, but also their swollen faces in the days and weeks after. They could only swallow rice porridge as chewing was painful and any flexing of the facial muscles would cause new bleeding of the wounds, and with it came an increased risk of infections.

None of the women I met, however, seem to have been forced into the tattooing ritual - at least this is what they say. But since the tattooing was conducted on the girls at a young age between seven and 15 years, the question has to be put differently: what choice would a child or a teen actually have in a society which regards a facial tattoo as the highest social status you can achieve as a women?

Excerpt from my book “Blood faces”, published in 2007, Flame of the Forest, Singapore, ISBN 978-981-4193-38-2