Page - 128 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

128 | Ulrike Luise Glum www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 123–143 As a result of a large-scale assistance mission after the First World War, many female victims were “reclaimed” by the Armenian community. Many found shelter in rescue homes, which were often established by North American and European missionaries and volunteers. However, not all Ar- menian women were treated in the same way. The tattoos which some women carried on their faces constituted not only the violent inscription of an alien identity, but also a barrier to readmission into their home com- munities.20 The Origin and Design of the Tattoos It is difficult to identify which ethnic groups were responsible for the tattoos documented on the photographs of the Armenian women. In the scholarship, their new communities and thus the presumed originators of these tattoos are labelled as Turks, Kurds, Arabs, or Bedouins.21 In general, scholars seem to concur that all of these new communities followed Islam.22 The oldest ev- idence of tattooing in the region dates back to the Mesopotamian city-state of Ur in 4,000 BCE. Figurines found there have black markings on their shoul- ders, which are interpreted as depicting early tattoos. Although tattooing was and still is controversial in Islam, it was a common practice among rural com- munities. Yet, as Winifred Smeaton noted in 1937, over the course of the 20th century, it was gradually becoming unpopular. In the area corresponding to present-day Turkey, tattooing was mostly practiced in eastern and southern Anatolia and was usually called daqq or dövün.23 The practice appears to have been very similar in Turkish, Kurdish, and Arab communities. The pigment used for tattooing was made out of diverse in- gredients, although the fundamental component was lampblack. The design was painted on the surface of the skin before being poked into the hypoderm using a needle. The tattooists were mainly women, whether professionals, women who tattooed themselves, or mothers who tattooed their children. Although it was more common for women to receive tattoos, men were also 20 Jinks 2018, 87–91. 21 See Okkenhaug 2015, 441; Jinks 2018, 87; Akçam 2012, 315. The term “Bedouin” describes not an ethnicity but a way of life among the Arabs. See Chatty/Young 2014. 22 See Okkenhaug 2015, 440–441; Jinks 2018, 90; Üngör 2012, 181; Derderian 2005, 9. 23 Field 1958, 8, 12; Smeaton 1937, 53; Birkalan-Gedik 2006, 46.