A member of the M'kaan clan. CHIN STATE, MYANMAR: THESE tribeswomen are the last of their kind after a government ban ended a one-thousand-year old FA
A member of the M'kaan clan. CHIN STATE, MYANMAR: THESE tribeswomen are the last of their kind after a government ban ended a one-thousand-year old FACIAL TATTOOING tradition designed to make them unattractive to rival tribes. In one image, small black tattooed dots covered the face of a woman from the Dai clan who also wore bamboo shoots through her stretched earlobes which measured several inches wide. In another, thin black lines ran both down and across the face of a woman from the Yindu clan creating an unintentional hazy optical illusion. Photographer Marco Vendittelli (32) from Sorrento, Italy, captured the images in Myanmar?s Chin State. Over seven days, Marco travelled across the 36,000 sq. km. region visiting the Dai, Muun, Yindu, Upu, Mkaan, and Ngaya clans. Across Chin State, there are over 60 clans ? many of which share the same tradition. Although the origins of the practice are unknown, many clanswomen will don dark black facial tattoos. Some say the tattoos simply signify which clan the women belong to. Others date the practice back to the 11th century when women would tattoo their faces to make themselves ?unattractive? to the then-Burmese kidnapping king. The practice was banned by the Myanmar government on humanitarian grounds in 1962. Many of the remaining women with facial tattoos are now clan elders leading to fears that this supposedly 1,000-year-old tradition may be dying out. / Marco Vendittelli
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Photo credit: © Media Drum World / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: ban, burma, clan, drum, face, government, mdrum, mdrumf, mdw, mdwf, mdwfeatures, media, mediadrumworld., myanmar, photography, portrait, tattoo, tradition, travel, tribal, tribe, world
