Schitz – Scarification

Posted at 9:03 pm by Gelene Celis, on January 24, 2019

“Where I come from (Nigeria) we don’t call it ‘Scarification.’ That’s a Western terminology”

So what do you call them?

“Nothing. We don’t call it anything. It’s marks of identity within indigenous cultures”

Yeah but you must have a term for it? How do you communicate when you discuss it?

“We normally don’t discuss it. It’s nothing wrong nor a taboo or anything. To us, it’s a very common, everyday thing to see. We come across it everyday and everybody knows it’s marks of identity. It just is.”

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“Scarifying (also scarification modification) involves scratching, etching, burning / branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification.^[1] In the process of body scarification, scars are formed by cutting or branding the skin by varying methods (sometimes using further sequential aggravating wound healing methods at timed intervals, like irritation.), to purposely influence wound healing to scar more and not scar less. Scarification is sometimes called cicatrization (from the French equivalent)…Within anthropology, the study of the body as a boundary has been long debated.^[1] In 1909, Van Gennep described bodily transformations, including tattooing, scarification, and painting, as rites of passage.^[3] In 1963, Levi-Strauss described the body as a surface waiting for the imprintation of culture. Turner (1980) first used the term “social skin” in his detailed discussion of how Kayapo culture was constructed and expressed through individual bodies. Inscribed skin highlights an issue that has been central to anthropology since its inception: the question of boundaries between the individual and society, between societies, and between representation and experiences.“
– Wikipedia