Henna 337 



Malayan inei) has been made in the west from ancient times. The 

 Egyptians stained their hands red with the leaves of the plant 1 (Egyp- 

 tian puqer, Coptic kuper or khuper, Hebrew kopher, Greek Kvirpos). All 

 Mohammedan peoples have adopted this custom; and they even dye 

 their hair with henna, also the manes, tails, and hoofs of horses. 2 The 

 species of western Asia is identical with that of China, which is sponta- 

 neous also in Baluchistan and in southern Persia. 3 Ancient Persia 

 played a prominent r61e as mediator in the propagation of the plant. 4 

 "They [the Persians] have also a custom of painting their hands, and, 

 above all, their nails, with a red color, inclining to yellowish or orange, 

 much near the color that our tanners nails are of. There are those 

 who also paint their feet. This is so necessary an ornament in their 

 married women, that this kind of paint is brought up, and distributed 

 among those that are invited to their wedding dinners. They there- 

 with paint also the bodies of such as dye maids, that when they appear 

 before the Angels Examinants, they may be found more neat and 

 handsome. This color is made of the herb, which they call Chinne, 

 which hath leaves like those of liquorice, or rather those of myrtle. It 

 grows in the Province of Erak, and it is dry'd, and beaten, small as 

 flower, and there is put thereto a little of the juyce of sour pomegranate, 

 or citron, or sometimes only fair water; and therewith they color their 

 hands. And if they would have them to be of a darker color, they rub 

 them afterwards with wall-nut leaves. This color will not be got off in 

 fifteen days, though they wash their hands several times a day." 5 It 



1 V. Loret, Flore pharaonique, p. 80; Wcenig, Pflanzen im alten Aegypten, 

 P- 349- 



* L. Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. I, p. 469; G. Jacob, Studien in arabischen 

 Geographen, p. 172; A. v. Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, 

 Vol. II, p. 325. 



1 C. Joret, Plantes dans l'antiquite\ Vol. II, p. 47. 



4 Schweinfurth, Z. Ethnologie, Vol. XXIII, 1 891, p. 658. 



5 A. Olearius, Voyages of the Ambassadors to the Great Duke of Muscovy 

 and the King of Persia (1633-39), P- 2 34 (London, 1669). I add the very exact 

 description of the process given by Schlimmer (Terminologie, p. 343): "C'est avec 

 la poudre fine des feuilles seches de cette plante, largement cultiv£e dans le midi 

 de la Perse, que les indigenes se colorent les cheveux, la barbe et les ongles en rouge- 

 orange. La poudre, form6e en pate avec de l'eau plus ou moins chaude, est appliquee 

 sur les cheveux et les ongles et y reste pendant une ou deux heures, ayant soin de la 

 tenir constamment humide en empfichant l'evaporation de son eau; apres quoi la 

 partie est lavee soigneusement; l'effet de l'application du henna est de donner une 

 couleur rouge-orange aux cheveux et aux ongles. Pour transformer cette couleur 

 rougeatre en noir luisant, on enduit pendant deux ou trois autres heures les cheveux 

 ou la barbe d'une seconde pate formee de feuilles pulv£ris6es finement d'une espece 

 d'indigof ere, cultivee sur une large echelle dans la province de Kerman. Ces mani- 

 pulations se pratiquent d'ordinaire au bain persan, ou la chaleur humide diminue 



